


Red Queen

by sparrowshellcat



Series: Wonderland AU [2]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Chronicles of Riddick Series
Genre: Crossover, Crossover Pairings, M/M, Mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-22
Updated: 2012-03-22
Packaged: 2017-11-02 09:34:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 56,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/367543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparrowshellcat/pseuds/sparrowshellcat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Xander had sort of thought that once the Necromonger army was defeated that things would sort of settle out, and that he'd sort of just get to enjoy some time with his family. But then the need for a pilgrimage to the Underverse started to become more pressing.<br/>As if that weren't bad enough, someone he thought he could trust has betrayed him, and a mercenary he once counted as friend is trying to kill him. </p><p>And he's pregnant. Again. Awesome.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Alice! A childish story take

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own no rights to either BtVS or tCoR. Great respect is offered to both of these canons, and they're used without permission.  
> Author's Notes: I was so incredibly lucky to work with chosenfire28 again - she is, in my mind, the only artist who can nail my "verse" so perfectly! Sequel to my previous story White Rabbit, though it is not necessary to read it to understand this one.
> 
> \---
> 
> For more fic and art, you can follow me on Tumblr! [sparrowshellcat](http://sparrowshellcat.tumblr.com)

 

 The forest was quiet, and silent - or as silent as a forest got, at night, when the animals were moving about and moving and trying to hunt and eat and hide from those that were hunting and eating. It was a normal quiet night, and there was nothing that seemed likely to disrupt that.

Until the sky lit up with a fire in the West, and a streak of light screamed across the sky before some object, wreathed in flame, slammed to the ground. Trees smashed to the ground around the impact point, flaring out like matchsticks thrown across the dirt, spread out in a bow around the impact point. Some of the trees lit on fire, and crackled away as the object came to its final resting place, half buried in the mossy ground.

For several long moments, the whole forest sat still.

It was like the world was holding its breath.

A fox was the first to encroach in on the new ring of fallen trees, confident in knowing that it was a predator, that it was not a prey species, and curious. Nose twitching, it moved closer, until it was close to the metal device that sat, open and empty, in the middle of the little ring of dead trees.

There was a sound from somewhere deep inside the object, and it shied back at the metallic 'ting', but nothing seemed to happen, and it slowly moved forward again.

Silently, there was a shift, and it was as though the metal ball split slowly in half, the top of it falling open. The fox's nose twitched as it shifted even closer, trying to identify scents it couldn't place, that it had never smelled before, putting one paw boldly on the outside of the shape as it tried to get closer to the now-open device, trying to place what was inside, trying to understand why there was a familiar scent that didn't seem just quite right...

There was a soft cry of pain, and a woman stumbled out of the sphere.

The fox backed up, rapidly, still slightly off kilter, like it couldn't figure out what exactly it was supposed to be doing, and backed up a little.

The woman panted as she landed on her hands and knees, panting heavily. There was blood dripping down her forehead, down to her jaw, and one of her arms looked twisted, broken. There was even more blood on her legs, running down her thighs to drip on the dirt, and as she sat up, slowly, she clutched at her own heavily pregnant belly. Fighting to breathe, she looked around the little burnt up clearing, as though trying to figure out where she was. It couldn't be right, it wasn't the right place...

There was a flare in the sphere behind her, and she grabbed at the open edge, fighting to pull herself to her feet.

Leaning forward, she held up a small black square, hands shaking as she supported herself on the remains of her craft, wincing slightly as she tapped at the screen of the device with the fingers of her broken arm. Her teeth were grit, tightly, and she looked furious, but still she worked. For a moment, she looked like perhaps she was going to calm down, then abruptly she let out another shout, and threw the little device before bolting into a run, as fast as she could, trying to get as much distance between herself and her vessel, as quickly as possible.

Behind her, the fox crept closer to the thing she had thrown, hoping that it was food. It smelled of cold and nothing, though, as he sniffed at an image that meant nothing to him.

A black ship, hanging like a bird of prey among the stars, like a malevolent beast waiting to swing down and destroy.


	2. Alice! A childish story take

 

 There was an army spread out below them.

There were ships hovering in the scorched sky, dark and sharp, and the men on the ground below them, waiting for the signal to head into these waiting birds of prey, were standing in perfect, neat lines. They were less people and more machines, perfectly formed and perfectly lined up, like a child's playthings laid out neatly. Rank and file, row upon row of men in black armour, adorned with death imagery and the touch of saw blades.

They waited in lines for their leader, their Marshall, to tell them what to do.

And the Lord Marshall sat sprawled out in the massive chair that was apparently his throne, one leg hooked up over the arm of the chair, his elbow resting on the other arm, resting his chin on his hand as he glared at the scene below him. His eyes were obscured by a pair of mirrored goggles, and he wore black, the same as the men below did, though he refused to dress exactly as they did, and wore no armour, just heavy black leather pants and a black tank top that looked vaguely like it was made of snake skin. The boots he wore, though, looked sort of out of place with everything else - his clothes looked new and well cared for, and his boots looked like they'd been through hell itself, and then some, with scuffs and cuts in the black leather. He looked, completely, like he did not want to be the one upon whom this massive army was waiting.

"Hey."

He didn't lift his head, just shifted slightly to hold out a single hand.

The speaker stepped forward, a younger man with his hair tied back in a braid, feathers dangling from the braid itself, wearing a massive oversized sweater that looked like it was going to slip off his shoulders if he moved wrong. "What's the hand for?"

Riddick lifted his head, arching a single brow over his goggles.

"...okay, you're in silent mode again," the other groaned, stepping closer, thumping his hand down into the other's open hand, shaking his head. "Fine."

He tugged him closer, abruptly, and Xander sort of yelped as he almost tumbled and finally managed to avoid collapsing right off the bat by just landing in Riddick's lap. "Oi. Was that really necessary? We're in the damn throne room, Riddick."

"I noticed." He rumbled, not seeming to care.

"Right..." Xander frowned, considering him for a moment, then just shook his head, and flopped over, bonelessly, resting his head on Riddick's shoulder. He didn't really care that there were men walking around through the throne room, that there were ranks of men waiting for orders out in the field below them, that they were essentially waiting for the order to destroy this world - or not. It wasn't the only world in the verse. And he didn't really care.

"My Lord Marshall?"

Riddick took a deep breath, his head shifting only very slightly as he looked up at the man standing beside his chair. "I've mentioned that before."

"You have," Vaako said calmly, arching a single brow, smirking slightly. He didn't dress like a Necromonger anymore. Somewhere around the time that Xander and his daughter had woken the Furyans among the army that was the Necromongers, he'd chosen to stop masquerading as what he had become, and had gone back to being what he had begun his life as. He wore, therefore, a pair of fairly tightly tailored brown trousers, and a brown leather vest that had been laced up the front. His hair was still cropped into a long faux-hawk with the sides clipped very short, but there was a feather tied into the long black locks. "And I have, noticeably, chosen to ignore you. Now. Your men are waiting."

"Mmm. Come on, Lord Marshall." Xander drawled, smirking. "Marshall something."

Even with the goggles on, it was clear that Riddick was giving his mate a withering glare.

And Xander, frankly, couldn't care less.

He just grinned, and kissed the top of the other's bald head, cheerfully, and grinned up at Vaako. "If it were up to me, I'd say, get them on the ships. But naturally, I'm not the Lord Marshall, so... ignore me."

"I'll come to you when we need to make spiritual decisions," Vaako said, with a slight smirk. "After all, those are decisions for our Lavelle."

"Ugh. Yeah. If we decide to build a church, I'd be the one to ask. Otherwise, I don't think I've got many spiritual decisions to be making, hm?"

“Well, we may have need for your guidance soon, Lavelle Xander, as the masses are beginning to be impatient.” Vaako motioned to the massive view-screen though which they were watching the still-waiting army. “They are beginning to become... concerned. That you ill not end up leading them on a proper pilgrimage to the Underverse.”

Xander groaned, heavily.

The Underverse was something of a complicated topic for them.

It was a place, really, more than a thing. Though most of the verse murmured in fear of the Underverse and thought of it as a place of death, it had always been a holy place for two of the major forces in the verse – the Necromongers and the Furyans. Of course, this was really only because most of the verse had long forgotten that before they began converting the people of a good contingent of worlds, the Necromongers had been nothing but a cult of fanatic Furyans, broke off from the man body of their people. Now that the Necromonger nation no longer technically existed, and the Furyan nation had awoken from the ashes of the very nation that had consumed them, most of the verse assumed they were now “safe”. And certainly, Furyans were born, not converted. But they were as warlike now as they had been before the Necromongers consumed their masses, and the Underverse was still an integral part of the Furyan religion. Which mean that the Lord Marshall and the Lavelle, the two leaders of the Furyan people – one military, one spiritual – were expected to go on a pilgrimage to the Underverse. Every previous Lord Marshall had done it – Lavelle's not so much, but there hadn't really been a Lavelle since the last one was converted to be their Purifier thirty years ago – and now it was Riddick's turn.

He'd sort of been avoiding it.

Xander couldn't really blame him, personally, about the very last thing he wanted to do, himself, was set on a pilgrimage to a place he believed existed, but he didn't really give a shit about. Probably a bad thing to admit, when he was supposed to be the spiritual leader for his people, that he didn't actually really _care_ about the religion. How could he, really? He'd been raised Easter-and-Christmas Catholic, then spent a good six or so years traipsing around in space – asleep half of that time in cryogenic sleep – and it was only now that he was starting to puzzle out the religion he was supposed to be, like, the pope of.

Vaako had suggested that perhaps if he took the pilgrimage, he _would_ feel something about the somewhat morbid faith of the Furyans.

Xander had pointed out that if he did it and _still_ felt nothing, what would that mean for the Furyans, then?

Riddick always just snorted, and shook his head at them.

“I don't really think it's _necessary_ for us to go to the Underverse for the Furyans to keep following us,” Xander shook his head. “Hey, we keep bringing them into battle and stuff, they get to fight, they're happy. Why would they need some spiritual journey, too?”

“Because the Furyans are a deeply spiritual people, Xander.” Vaako shook his head.

"Yeah, well... I'm Furyan," he pointed out. "And I don't feel terribly spiritual."

"Which, considering you're the Lavelle, is almost a travesty," Vaako shook his head, and drew a deep breath, before pointing out, finally, "Riddick, the men have been waiting in formation for hours now. Are we going to leave this planet, or not?"

"We're going to leave this planet," Riddick finally spoke, a low rumble deep in his chest. "Order them to move aboard the ships."

"Yes sir," Vaako nodded, and moved over to bark orders to some of the men at the control panels.

Really, Vaako was the Furyan's leader. Riddick took delight in leading the men into battle, when he could, but lately there had been a lot of red tape about that, something about the Marshalls, the second in commands, being rather concerned that if he went into battle, he'd end up dead. They didn't want any primes dying in battle. If the Lord Marshall was to die, they'd rather he died in combat with another Furyan. Necromongers weren't the only ones that kept what they killed. Riddick, naturally, was pissed about this decision, and tried to ignore their orders and go into battle whenever possible, anyway. Usually, he found ways. But Even though Xander was supposed to be the spiritual leader of the people, he was pretty terrible at doing that, too, and usually, he had to turn to their adviser and ask him what in the verse he was supposed to be doing now. Vaako usually knew.

And when he didn't, Xander was always happy to wing it.

Winging it was more fun, usually.

He sighed, softly, and curled a little closer to the man that was all but his husband, and murmured, idly, "So... where are we going next, Riddick? What are we planning to destroy, next?"

Xander didn't need to be able to see the other's eyes to know that Riddick was looking at him.

Snickering, he tapped his mate's collar bone, and drawled, "I know you're all strong and silent mister, but unless you're planning on going to the Underverse after all - and who knows, maybe you've decided it's time for that pilgrimage after all... unless you're planning on that, I think we have something we need to be doing, don't we? And that something is, you know, picking a world to ravage next. Last I heard, we had some enemies in the Lupus system... and you know I'd never complain if we took the Bounty Hunters, or something, you know... make them pay for all the shit we went through..."

"Shut up," Riddick rumbled, frowning slightly.

"Don't wanna," he smirked. "You're not talking, so someone has to fill the silence, don't they? And if you won't talk, then I guess it's up to - "

The other man pressed his fingers against Xander's mouth.

"Kinky," he smirked, behind the other's hand.

Vaako stepped closer to them again, frowning slightly. "The men are moving aboard... where are we going, Riddick?"

"That depends."

"On?" Their adviser frowned slightly, as though he was slightly afraid of the answer. Xander really couldn't blame him, Riddick seemed to come up with some strange and ridiculous answers, sometimes.

Riddick lowered his hand off of Xander's mouth, finally, and said, "What happened to Aereon?"

"Ah..." Vaako frowned, and glanced at Xander as though he thought maybe the Lavelle had the answer. "I am unsure. After you became Lord Marshall and declared her freed... we don't know where she went. We assumed she rejoined the people of Helion Prime... that would make the most logical sense, would it not?"

"Yeah, but she's a manipulative bitch." He frowned, and glanced again at Xander. "Have you seen her?"

Xander cleared his throat. It was a difficult question to answer, exactly, because it was sort of hard to explain to people that Xander did, in fact, see people in his dreams. A lot of people. But the person he had always seen, most of all, in those dreams, was Aereon. He wished it was Riddick that he saw, more than not, he always wished that it was. But instead, what he saw was a sort of psychic elemental that wanted to get him and Riddick into line for this colossal chess game that the elementals were running with the verse.

His problem was that he usually only saw her when he was in cryo, and thanks to the Furyans and whatever was left of what had been the Necromongers, he hadn't been in cryo in years, now.

"No. Not recently, anyway. After the last birth... yes. She, ah... showed up. To congratulate me."

"Seriously?" Riddick arched a brow over his goggles.

"Yeah." He cleared his throat. "I didn't mention it because it was sort of creepy. I just... have a slight problem with a woman showing up in my dreams, knowing things I've never told her, knowing about things even I don't know... congratulating me about my children... you know. It's sort of a bit much."

His mate smirked slightly, and reached up to brush one of Xander's curls back behind his ears.

"I like when you're all sweet like that," he smirked, playfully leaning forward to kiss his lover's forehead, cheerfully, then laughed outright when Riddick snorted, and gave a shove at him. He tumbled off of the arm of the throne, and straightened, stretching widely. "Mmm... my back is killing me."

"And you're not even pregnant this time," Vaako drawled.

"Yeah, yeah... and I should be so lucky." He rolled his eye - not that anyone could tell. Xander wore the exact same goggles that Riddick did, though the shape was slightly more oval, rather than round, and he had only one eye behind his goggles, unlike the two that Riddick had. Shame, because he had the same sort of glow-in-the-dark eyes that the other man had, and it was a helpful sort of thing to have, eyes that could see almost anything, even in the dark. "How are you doing on that front, anyway, Vaako? Found yourself a mate able to give you a child?"

"Just because you are my friend does not mean you have the right to interfere in my personal life, Xander," Vaako said, firmly, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Hey. I'm your Lavelle. I think that means it's my job to interfere in your personal life," he drawled, crossing his arms right back at him, smirking. "That's what a Lavelle does, they're supposed to meddle in your personal life and make decisions and try and get you mated. That's what I think a Lavelle is supposed to do, anyway... and aren't I the only Lavelle around to ask?"

"Very funny," Vaako said, grumbling.

He snickered, and glanced down at Riddick. "He should totally find himself a mate that can get him children, shouldn't he? I mean... he's a Prime, like me. And his wife is an Alpha. Female Alphas are sterile, everyone knows that! If he wants babies, he has to find himself an Alpha! You know... a male Alpha."

"That is hardly my purpose at this time in my life," he grumbled. "I've barely even remembered that I am Furyan, Xander."

"You've remember you're a Furyan for like... four years," Xander rolled his eyes. "So don't give me that. I woke you up a long time ago. I mean, even look at you, you're not even dressed like a Necromonger anymore."

"You are aware of the fact that when the Furyans killed the last of the converted Necromongers, we all woke up, correct?" Vaako smiled tightly. "So none of them are dressing like Necromongers anymore... because they're not Necromongers. They're Furyans, we all are. But if you decide to push this issue, there will be more issues for us. Trust me."

Shaking his head, Xander sighed, and flopped back down on the arm of Riddick's chair. "He's no fun anymore, Riddick."

"Vaako was never fun." He pointed out.

"...I dunno, that time he like... jumped up and protected us in front of the entire army of Necromongers... that was totally fun. That was epically fun, actually. I really liked that. But this... this isn't much fun anymore."

"Mm." Riddick nodded, clearly patronizing him. His expression wasn't very amused.

Vaako took a deep breath, and sighed, heavily. "All right. The men are on the vessels, Riddick. We need to leave, and we need to know where we're going."

"We're tracking down Aereon." The Lord Marshall leaned back in his seat, considering the man standing in front of them. "So take us to the elemental's planet, Vaako."

He hesitated, frowning. "...are you sure?"

"You're questioning the Lord Marshall?" He arched a brow again.

"And you're getting all dramatic again," Xander snickered, rubbing the top of the other man's bald head, lightly. He did always love the other's head. He was a fan. "I mean, sure, you're hot when you're being all broody and grumpy, but it's a little much, isn't it? Come on, let's just - "

There was a squeal from somewhere behind them, and he lifted his head, startled.

A child ran into the room, stumbling slightly as she did, all scrambling and running and clumsy on her feet, a small little child, maybe four years old, her dark brown curls tied up in little pigtails, from which feathers dangled. The feathers were really too large for her pigtails, but no one seemed to care, not really. She was wearing a brown leather vest over a light yellow dress, and was completely bare foot. Running through the large room, she dashed up to the throne where Riddick and Xander sat, and held up her arms, crying out, "Up up up!"

Xander was the one who shifted forward to scoop her up, laughing as he plunked her down on his lap. "Heya there, little one."

She giggled and clapped her hands, tugging at his feathers. "Am up!"

"So you are," he smiled, softly, and idly brushed a few of the curls off of her forehead, smiling at the little girl as she wriggled and shifted on his lap, too excited and eager to really sit still, her attention really on other things than just sitting and listening.

"Wills!" Another voice called, and a taller girl, maybe nine or ten, rushed forward. She was darker toned than her little sister, and her dark hair was woven into even tighter curls - Xander hadn't known it, when she was born, but he found out later, that she took after her father much more than her... well, other father.

Things got complicated when two men had children together.

"I'm sorry, she - she ran off... I didn't mean for her to get here..."

"Hey, Ziza," Xander held out an arm to his older daughter, grinning slightly. His baby girl, though she was growing up now, wasn't she? She wasn't just a baby anymore, she was becoming a young adult. "C'mon, we don't mind. Always good to see our little girls."

"We're big, daddy!" Wills howled, bouncing in his lap.

"Yes, yes of course, darling, you're big." He smirked, and brushed his daughter's hair back again. "Big and strong and most definitely getting bigger. Where's your brother?"

"My wife was taking care of him," Vaako reminded him.

"Ah... right. Our dear baby sitter." He snickered, and set Wills down on her feet before he stood. "I'm going to go check on the kids. Riddick... you coming, or... are you planning on staying here? Taking care of some military affairs?"

"Vaako can handle them," Riddick shook his head, and bent slightly, just long enough to scoop up the toddler up off the floor, setting her on his hip.

"You know, she can walk," Xander pointed out, shaking his head. "By carrying her around everywhere, you're spoiling her, and teaching her that she can get anything she wants if she just pouts at her father, enough."

"She's growing up fine." He arched a brow. "Walk."

"You're always so serious," the younger man shook his head again, and held out a hand to Ziza. She gave him a withering look, and he snickered before snagging her hand anyway, not really caring that she didn't think it was much fun to let her daddy hold her hand, and headed out of the throne room. "Come on, let's go find your baby brother, huh?"

"Not a baby!" Wills was bouncing slightly on Riddick's hip, giggling. "He's big too!"

"Sure," Xander smirked, and glanced down at Ziza. "What do you think... is Jesse a big kid?"

"Jesse's a baby," she grumbled, shaking her head, but she did let her father hold her hand, even though she didn't want him to, in the first place. She was sort of a typical ten year old, really... big enough to think that really, she was grown, and small enough to still sort of like it when her father treated her like his little princess. After all, she was, technically, actually a princess, the child of the Lord Marshall and the Lavelle, but that didn't mean she usually liked acting like one. "A big baby."

"...he's been crying all afternoon, huh?" He guessed.

"Yes." She grumbled.

Riddick snorted up ahead, and glanced back at his mate and his daughter. He wasn't usually the sort to show... affection, not really, but that didn't really stop him, when the moment hit him. Xander had always found it funny, that the other man was never really sweet or loving or romantic, at least not with him, but he sort of seemed to spoil their children like no one's business. It was sort of adorable, in a frightening sort of way. Frightening because, really... seeing the Killer of Men acting like a good loving father... well. That tended to scare the shit out of people. Especially humans, actually.

Xander loved to watch him, though. Loved to watch his mate with their children. He'd never really expected to be a family man, considering the shitty sort of family he'd had as a child, but somehow an alcoholic, abusive adoptive father in his case, and Riddick being raised in a shithole orphanage after he'd been found in a dumpster had somehow combined to create two men for whom family was their whole... existence.

Life was sort of funny, that way.

"You realize you're walking past the room, right?" Xander called.

"I'm aware." His mate drawled back, bouncing their daughter. "And...?"

"So we're going the wrong way," he smirked, and shook his head, heading back towards the door that Riddick had just walked past, opening the door and stepping inside. He didn't really bother to knock, because, well... knocking wasn't really his thing. Besides, he knew who was there.

Dame Vaako - Paala by name - was sitting on a low settee, with a blanket wrapped bundle in her arms. She looked up when they entered, and for just a moment, a look of fury flickered across her face.

It smoothed out, an instant later, and her expression was as smooth and as in control as ever, and the woman rose, slowly, still cradling the little bundle. "Lord Marshall... Lavelle. A pleasure."

"How many times have we told you that our names are Riddick and Xander?" Xander arched a brow, shaking his head slightly.

"I don't want my name on her lips," Riddick said, tightly, and set little Wills down before shifting forward and plucking the blanketed bundle out of the woman's arms, with no preamble. He never seemed to have any patience for Paala, though Xander could never really figure out why. Sure, she had flirted with his mate... a lot. But Xander didn't manage to get all grumpy about his jealousy. Naturally, he didn't really want Dame Vaako flirting with his mate anymore, but that still wasn't a reason for Riddick to hate her quite as much as he seemed to.

The Killer of Men turned his back on her - an insult among Furyans, because it meant he didn't even consider her enough of a threat to protect himself from her, even though she, too, was an Alpha - and shifted some of the blankets back. "Little one."

Wide blue-silver eyes looked back at him, pupiless. Those tiny eyes caught every bit of light in the room, and seemed to reflect it back, and as though it had just taken him a moment to adjust, the little baby suddenly wailed, loudly, eyes squeezed tightly shut as he flailed, mouth open as he screamed.

"Paala, you have the lights too bright in here," Xander grumbled, moving to the wall to dim them. "You know he's sensitive."

"Forgive me, my Lavelle, I was only trying to keep things bright enough for all of the children..." She curtsied, deeply, head inclined so that he couldn't see her face.

"We can see just fine in the dark," Ziza muttered. "We're used to it."

"But your older children do not see in the dark the same way, I didn't want to strain their eyesight..."

Riddick snorted, and curled little Jesse closer to his chest. Now that it was darker in the room, the little one settled down, just hiccuping and snuffling slightly as he squirmed, reaching for his father's goggles. The children always seemed fascinated by them.

"Thank you, anyway, Paala, nice of you to baby sit," Xander sighed softly, and held out a hand for Wills, who took it immediately. "We'll take them off your hands, now."

"Lord Marshall, wait."

Riddick hesitated, near the door, half turning to face her, brows furrowed, dark over his goggles. With his silver eyes exposed or not, he was a man with an intimidating glower. "What is it?"

"Where are we going?" She asked, frowning. "Are we finally going on our pilgrimage?"

"No," Riddick said, bluntly.

Without another word, he left the room, heading out into the hallway outside of her room, holding his little son in his arm as he headed out towards the rooms at the end of the hallway, the massive rooms that were set aside for the Lord Marshall - and these days, the Lord Marshall and his family.

Xander sighed, and nodded at Paala before he headed, quickly, out after his mate.

It was strange. Sometimes, Xander really felt like the child, or at least an older child. He always seemed to follow what Riddick told him to do, and... that was his life. He loved him, he really did, but it wasn't exactly what a person would call a normal relationship. Were he back on earth, with his friends, he was pretty damn sure that Willow would have called their relationship dysfunctional, and that Giles would have frowned and told him that maybe he should be trying to find himself someone with whom he could have a more normal relationship. But he'd be quick to point out that he wasn't human, and being with his mate - his husband, in earth terms, even though there had never been a ceremony or rings or anything ridiculous like that, it was just that, at some point, it had become impossible for them to live without the other - and that he was not going to leave Riddick, no matter what his friends and family thought of their fucked up little relationship. All things considered, Xander actually sort of liked their fucked up relationship. It worked well for him.

But that was only half the time. The other half the time, Xander was anything but a child to Riddick. He liked the times when his lover actually trusted him to take care of himself much better. Made him feel more... useful, perhaps.

And yeah, often he felt that way when he had a child in his arms. The children he had with Riddick made him feel... much more significant.

Xander flopped down, heavily, on the massive bed that he shared with Riddick, and laughed when his children clambered onto the bed with him. Well, Jesse wasn't clambering so much as he was being held in Riddick's lap when the other man sat heavily beside him, but that worked, in the long run. Reaching out, he brushed his son's downy head, and murmured, "Why do you hate her so much, Riddick?"

His mate didn't answer, just reached up to shift his goggles up onto his forehead, eyes glinting silver in the dim light of their chamber.

Wills curled up between them, and yawned before shoving her thumb in her mouth, and hunkering down. It had been a long afternoon, apparently. Ziza settled on the end of the bed, sitting by their feet, and said, "I want to learn how to fight."

Xander snorted, and arched a brow, shifting his own goggles up. "You so don't want that."

"I do." She said, firmly, frowning. "I want to learn how to fight. I'm Furyan. That's what Furyans do."

"Sure," he shrugged. "It's what Furyans do... when their fathers aren't the extremely overprotective leaders of the Furyan nation. And then you learn to use your knife properly, and focus on your studies. Actual fighting will come later."

She slapped her palms down on the bed. "The other children are learning to fight!"

"They are not," he snorted. "The oldest Furyan children are like... three."

"Actually." Riddick shifted Jesse, tugging the blanket off of him so that he could just lean back against the headboard, and rest the wriggling child on his chest. Jesse giggled and gurgled and clutched at the collar of Riddick's tank top. He was a much happier child when it wasn't too bright. "They are learning to fight."

Xander blinked at him. "No way."

He arched a brow, waiting for the other to calm down.

"Huh." Leaning back against the headboard beside him, Xander frowned slightly. "But they're so young..."

"Furyans are warriors," Riddick shrugged, as though that explained everything. And really, it did. This was what Furyans did, after all.

"Yeah, but..." He keened slightly, then perked up as he thought of the perfect argument. "But she can't learn how to fight, you see, because there is no one her age for her to fight."

"Are you seriously telling me you only fought children your own age at her age?" Riddick arched a brow.

 

Xander cleared his throat. "At her age I was classified a "problem child" and kept nearly getting expelled from school because I kept trying to fight my teachers, actually."

"You see the point, then." Riddick drawled.

"I don't want her to fight!" Xander yelped. "I want our little girl to be safe and - and not in danger!"

"Daddy!" She slammed her fists down on the bed again, furious. "I am not a little girl! I am almost grown! I need to learn to fight properly, or I will not be worth the life I'm living! I'm only worthy to be alive if I can defend my existence!"

"And that... doesn't sound like the kind of thing I spout out at all..." Xander groaned, and said, finally, "Fine. You can learn to fight. But only - only if you can prove your knife skills are good enough, first."

"Daddy!" She howled.

"Hey, your father made me learn how to use a knife before he taught me how to kick a person's ass without one." He pointed at her.

"The circumstances were somewhat different," Riddick arched a brow.

"Don't care," he said, firmly. "I want her to be able to cut an enemy down with an ulak before I want her trying to just... like... rip their heads off with their bare hands."

"Because you want her to be a Prime, like you."

Xander hesitated, and swallowed before glancing at his mate. "...I don't think this is the kind of thing we should be discussing in front of the children."

"Then by all means, send them away," he arched a brow.

He cleared his throat, and glanced at his daughters. Both looked up at him, expectantly, and Xander sighed before calling, "All right, that's it, bed time!"

"Daddy!" Ziza howled, displeased, and he just scooped up Wills, who didn't really seem to care one way or the other.

"Oi, none of that, young lady. I promised to let you learn how to fight. You're not getting anything more than that." He rolled his eyes, and pointed at the door that lead to the room she shared with her little sister. "Go. Bedtime."

"Not fair." She grumbled. "Jesse gets to sleep here."

"Yeah, cause he's still a baby." He rolled his eyes, and carted Wills into the room, which was just as dimly lit as the rest of the apartment. "When you were a baby you got spoiled too."

"When I was a baby, I was raised by the Imam," she grumbled.

"Okay, true, but you don't need to dwell on that, your fathers were both in slams, so it wasn't like we were around to be taking care of you. Now. In bed, we'll talk about this fighting thing in the morning."

It took Xander a long time to get them in bed, which was sort of normal actually. Riddick had slipped into the room somewhere during the process to press his palm to each of their foreheads, quietly, but tonight it was Xander putting them to sleep. It wasn't always, but today, it was. By the time he headed out into the main bedroom, Jesse was curled in the massive black metal bassinet that was set at the end of their massive bed. It sort of fit into the whole fairly dark and slightly disturbing Necromonger decor that the whole ship still maintained, though Xander had never really been able to figure out why there was a bassinet on a Necromonger ship, anyway. They were basically undead, held in a state of permanent stasis, and one thing that Necromongers definitely did not do was have children. Still, he was glad it had been there when they'd needed it - he'd had two children sleep in that thing. Wills had been born shortly after they'd awakened the Furyans buried among the Necromonger masses, and Jesse had been born almost a year ago, now. He was small for his age, though, something that bothered Xander to no end.

Riddick never seemed worried.

Crawling up onto the bed, Xander stretched out beside his mate, quietly. "Hey."

"Hm." Riddick didn't move, but he did shift his eyes to consider Xander out of the corner of his eyes.

"So I guess now is when we talk about it." He cleared his throat. "...you really think Ziza is an Alpha, don't you?"

"It's fairly obvious." Riddick rumbled, his arm slowly rising to curl around Xander's shoulders, shifting him closer to his side, his fingers almost idly stroking at the little curls at the base of the younger man's skull. "She's aggressive, she's forceful..."

"I am both aggressive and forceful," Xander pointed out, rolling his eyes. "So I have no idea why you would ever think that a Prime couldn't be both of those."

Riddick smirked, tugging Xander closer as he shifted, leaning over him. His hips shifted to pins Xander's to the bed, and he looked down at the other man, taller, sure, but leaner, with an almost devious smirk. "You would actually call yourself more forceful and aggressive than me?"

He cleared his throat. "Maybe not you."

"You're a Furyan, bitch." He reminded him, and nipped at Xander's jaw, making the slighter man buck up under him, gasping softly. "Of course you're aggressive and forceful. That is what makes you a fucking Furyan."

"Right. I knew that," Xander said, slightly breathlessly, fingers curled on the back of the other's neck. Riddick sort of had that affect on him. Always had. Probably always would. "Right. But I'm a Prime, remember, I'm the one that's all spiritual side of the family and raising the children and, hell, having the children. That doesn't mean I'm not forceful and aggressive and you so know that I could totally kick your ass if it came to it."

Riddick arched a single brow.

"Stop doing that, you look like Spike," he grumbled, reaching up to tap the other man's forehead. "And you know how much that weirds me out. And I so could kick your ass. I have skills. Mad skills. I could kick your ass. I totally could."

"Could you now," Riddick rumbled, and the deep, throaty sort of growl sent a shiver down Xander's spine, straight down to his cock. Oh yeah, that was maybe a bad thing.

But Xander had sort of always been really good at playing with fire.

"I could," he grinned, disarmingly. So it was a shit defense mechanism, it had always worked for him. It had worked against demons and vampires and other creepy crawlies of the dark, it could sure as hell work for a man with silver eyes and a bad attitude. "I could totally kick your ass. Give me a knife and I'll show you."

"Prove it," Riddick rumbled, and bit at Xander's jaw. "Bitch."

There was a time, once, back on Earth, where this would be the moment that Xander would back down. Crack a joke, find a way to make the situation funny again, back off. He had always been good at that, the jokes, the funny, the disarming. Maybe he would have made some lame crack about him being nobody's bitch, or, in a moment of real desperation, run to Buffy and sort of hid behind her. (He didn't like to admit it, but it was true. He'd hid behind the Slayer more often than he ever would have liked.) But he'd learned a lot. Hell, he'd had his eye cut out of his head, that was sort of the kind of thing that didn't make a person a wimp. And, above it all, he was a Furyan. Furyans don't back down.

Xander wrapped his legs around his lover's waist, and wrenched, hard, to the side.

Riddick had been expecting it, perhaps, but he rolled with him, regardless. And Xander realized why a moment later, when he realized that Riddick was just going to roll them again, and they rolled right off the bed. Xander landed at the bottom of that jumble of arms and legs, and shoved at Riddick, pushing him off.

Scrambling up to his feet, he grinned when he watched Riddick slowly stand - okay, his mate was hot to watch, and sort of distracting - but started moving a second later. He had to move before Riddick came to him.

If Riddick came to him, the fight was over. It always was.

The other man grinned, wolfishly, and seemed to be waiting for Xander's strike, as they slammed into each other like the sea crashing on a wall, solid and unmoving. Xander grunted, and twisted, knocking Riddick back a step or two, but the other man just caught him by his hair and wrenched his head back.

"Not fair," Xander growled, through his teeth.

"There's no 'fair' in battle." Riddick reminded him.

That was a good point, really, and Xander knew it - which was why he flicked the knife he wore in his belt up, lifting it to slash his own braid off in the other's fingers.

The other's hand caught his wrist, before he could, and growled, "Don't you dare."

"My hair," Xander grinned right back at him.

"Not happening." Riddick twisted his wrist, and Xander snarled when his mate tried to wrench his knife from his hand. Funny, really, for the man who shaved his head nearly every day to be the one who demanded that his mate keep his hair long. The blade toppled from Xander's fingers, hitting the floor with a clatter, then Riddick twisted his arm down. He wrenched the younger man's arm back until it might have broken, on another person, but Xander just snarled and twisted with his arm, lifting his leg to drive his knee into Riddick's chest.

It might have made sense for Xander to try and get away from his “attacker”, even if his attacker was his lover and his mate and the fight had been his idea. But he refused to back down. Frankly, now that he knew what he was, it made far more sense than it had when he was a child, though he was just as stubborn now as he had been then.

So Xander twisted, and wrapped his arm around his mate's thick, muscular neck, wrenching him down to the bed.

For a moment, for just a beautifully impressive moment, he had Riddick pinned to the bed under him. It was new, really, but he had him pinned down to the bed for that one moment.

And then Riddick lifted his hips and bucked him off.

Xander sucked in a sharp breath, startled, and very nearly flipped up. Then Riddick took a tight grip of his forearms, and _did_ flip him over his head, so that Xander landed hard on his back on the bed, slightly winded as he gaped up at the ceiling. But he couldn't just sit and stay, he rolled over onto his side, and tried to dash forward, but his mate caught him again, and slammed him back down. Teeth bared, he growled up at Riddick, snarling, “You're going to regret that.”

“No.” Riddick shifted so that he was straddling Xander's hips, pinning him down to the bed again. “I won't.”

Xander lifted his hips, and slammed his knees into his back. “Son of a bitch, Riddick...”

“You love it, bitch.” He growled right back, baring his teeth right back at Xander. “Now... what's the punishment for you thinking you could actually kick my ass, then?”

“I can kick your ass,” he lifted his jaw, and said, loftily, “I'm just letting you win because I don't want to injure your fragile little butterfly ego, Lord Marshall of the Furyan nation. I know how pouty you get when you start to think that someone is maybe stronger than you. After all, you put a knife in the past Lord Marshall's head.”

“It wasn't a _knife_ in your _head_ I was planning.” He growled, lowly, in his ear.

Xander swallowed, and lifted his hips under him. “Is that so?”

“There are three children, bitch. You keep going to read bedtime stories, and promise that there are no monsters under the bed – which is not true, there are monsters under beds – and I am starting to ponder the merits of pinning Vaako to the wall and taking him in the throne room.”

The green eyed monster was a creature that Xander had become very used to, in the last few years. Jealousy was an ugly monster, but it had long been an ally of his, no matter what he wanted, and when his mate, his lover, the man he fucking needed to survive, the man he _loved_ , though he wasn't likely to ever say that, suggested that he was going to find another man to sleep with, and not just another man, but another _prime_ , that furious jealousy monster rose in his chest, clawing its way up his throat, sinking its jealous claws into his heart. It made his insides lurch, and it was a furious, unpleasant feeling. It was hot and angry and Xander bared his teeth, a low, deep growl starting in his chest. Snarling, he surged up into Riddick, pressing into a kiss that was less of a kiss and more of an attack, a violent crush of lips on lips, biting at his mate's lips and drawing blood – his rage and fucked up desire even more fueled on by the taste of blood.

Riddick met him, force for force, anger for anger, rage for rage.

Which really only managed to make Xander angrier, and he slammed the heels of his hands into his lover's shoulders, but they weren't just fighting anymore, they were struggling out of their clothes and Xander was biting at Riddick's collarbone and shoulder, drawing blood with angry teeth and Riddick was as impatient with Xander's pants as he had ever been, and tore them down and off - not fully, just enough, and their fury and rage was building like a roaring fire as they threw themselves into each other like it was all they had left in the verse, and they were consumed by the fire of their fury.

Later, as they lay sort of side by side on the bed, sort of still tangled in each other, breathing heavily, Xander murmured, softly, "We are really fucked up, Riddick."

Riddick snorted slightly, and reached up to tangle his fingers in his mate's sweaty hair. "Speak for yourself, bitch."

Xander snickered, and closed his eye, just letting his hand rest on the other man's strong chest, feeling his rib cage rise and fall beneath his fingers, and just relieved that the other man was so clearly alive. He swore that sometimes they got into these fucked up situations just because Xander really had reassure himself that Riddick was alive. He had almost lost him so many times over the last fourteen, fifteen years, that he was always terrified of losing him.

"I guess I don't need to pin Vaako, after all." Riddick drawled.

He flicked the other's collarbone. "You seek out Vaako, and you're going to discover that you won't be able to bed anyone, Riddick. Because maybe I can't actually kick your ass, but I do sleep in the same bed as you, and I do have a knife on me at all times." Xander drawled, eye still closed, but he was smirking slightly. "And we already have three children."

"Bitch." Riddick snickered, but it was with an almost sort of affection.

"Yeah, well. I'm your bitch, remember?" He pointed out, rolling onto his side, and shifting so that he was curled into Riddick's side, sighing softly in relief. "So if I'm a bitch, it's entirely your fault, Riddick. It's always been your fault. It will probably always be your fault. By the way... why the fuck are we going to find Aereon?" He finally opened his eye, brows furrowed tightly as he considered the other man. "I don't get it."

"There are things I need to ask her."

He arched his brows, sort of wishing he could do the one brow thing like Riddick did. "Why? You said it yourself, she shows up in dreams. Showed up in mine a bunch of times, but it never really did me, or anyone else, any good, when she did. She just sort of shows up, makes up some mumbo jumbo about what we need to do to save the verse, and goes away again. I mean... unless you're planning on asking her when we're going to have another child, and if you are, I am really hoping that the answer is 'not for years'. Jesse isn't even a year old, Riddick."

"I like you pregnant," he smirked.

"Of course you do. I'm your barefoot and pregnant mate." He rolled his eyes. "I'm surprised you don't dress me up in dresses."

Riddick opened his mouth, and Xander let out a sound that sounded a lot like 'meep' and held a finger to his lips.

"Not a word. Not. One. Word."

The other just grinned, and leaned back into the pillows, looking up at the ceiling. The way they kept this apartment, others wouldn't be able to see a thing. Even among their army, very few of the other Furyans had developed the blue-silver seeing in the dark eyes that they had. Xander and Riddick were both proof that it didn't have to be something you were born with, but Jesse was living proof that it was something that a Furyan could be born with. Even Vaako couldn't quite see in the dark, though sometimes Xander swore he could see just a flare in the other man's eyes that meant he could see just a little bit more than the others.

Xander sighed, and curled closer again, resting his head on the other man's chest, staring off into space. "So what questions do you have to ask her, then?"

Riddick shrugged, lightly.

"You know, you could tell me." He pointed out. "I'm not going to judge the answers. I'm your mate. Our hearts beat in time. I'm pretty sure you're able to tell me anything."

The other didn't answer, just kept idly stroking Xander, which had come untied from its braid sometime during their rather... active rolling about on the bed, probably when Riddick had been pulling it. Neither was really sure, and neither honestly cared.

"...because if you're thinking anything like me, then you might be wondering about the whole... pilgrimage thing."

Riddick grunted, and Xander knew that he'd been right.

He sighed softly, and trailed his fingertips down the other's sternum. "Why are you even thinking about that, Riddick? I mean, yeah, Vaako keeps bringing it up, but... you're the Lord Marshall. You're not even Lavelle, like me, so you don't need to worry about our people's spiritual well being, or whatever, that's my job. You just have to worry about taking them to war."

He shrugged slightly, fingers still moving rhythmically through Xander's hair, which was actually quite comforting, he was surprised to discover.

Xander closed his eye again, and murmured, "Riddick. Seriously. If this is about going to ask someone what we are going to find when we finally do go on that pilgrimage - because I get it, we can put it off and put it off but the day will come when we are finally going to have face facts and go... if that's why you're going there, we could save that step. We could just go, and - " He hesitated, brows furrowing, then he sat up, and looked down at Riddick, frowning. "...you're going to ask her what this pilgrimage means. Not what we'll find, but what it fucking means. Why we're doing it in the first place. Aren't you? You're going to find out what this means."

Riddick considered him for a moment, then drawled, "Very insightful, bitch."

"...you're insane." He grumbled, and flopped back onto the other's chest. "You are completely insane, I hope you know that. Why don't you just ask Vaako?"

"He doesn't know."

"Then ask the Purifier," he rolled his eyes. "He used to be the Lavelle, once upon a time."

"He doesn't know."

"What?" Xander twisted where he lay, slightly, so that he could look up at Riddick. "There is no way that he doesn't know, he's the one who sent previous leaders on their spiritual journeys to the Underverse. Of course he knows."

"No." Riddick frowned, hand falling on the back of his head again. "He doesn't know why. He doesn't know why this is something we have to do. That predates him by generations, by generations so far back that he has no idea."

Xander frowned slightly, looking up at Riddick as he considered that, seriously.

The Furyans were sort of like a fledgling race, in the grand scheme of things. No, not fledglings, because that would imply new, and the Furyans were one of the oldest races, almost as old as humans. Now, they were like children, children that had been shoved in a closet and kept there for many, many years. Long enough that they had forgotten how to act around other children, and even other people, until all they knew was the dark and how to lash out at it. When they were awoken by Xander's rather foolish actions several years ago - he hadn't really been thinking that he was going to awaken a race with that sort of uncontrollable Wrath of the Furyans attack thing he'd been doing, he'd really just been trying to find a way to wake Ziza up - they had sort of stumbled out into the light and discovered themselves surrounded by people that were terrified of them, but they didn't really remember why.

The Furyans, as a people, were starting to regain what they had been. They had quickly taken over what was left of the Necromongers, which was really all that was left of the Furyans anyway, and they had been quick to regain their place in their mastery of the military matters in the verse, but they didn't really understand things. Though many of the Furyans that were awoken were literally centuries old, their memories of the past was gone.

We all began as something else.

The Furyans just couldn't remember what that something else was.

They were trying to learn it, they were, but though they knew certain things, such as a pilgrimage being necessary, it was true that they had no idea why they were taking it. It had become tradition so long that no one was really sure what it meant.

Xander had cracked that it was sort of like dogma and the Catholic church, but no one got the joke.

Not even when he made a reference to New Jersey.

So he muttered about their being Philistines - another reference that no one else seemed to get - and went back to just making the jokes to Riddick. Even if his mate didn't get them, he still snickered sometimes when Xander told them.

"Okay, so we go find a really old elemental that can tell the future and hope to all hell that she can tell us why we are supposed to do this. What do we do if she tells us that it's absolutely essential, and that if we don't go voyage to the Underverse this verse will explode?" He asked, glancing up at Riddick.

"Then we decide if we'd rather pilgrimage or wait for the verse to explode," he said, bluntly.

"...right." Xander pursed his lips. "And if she says that we need to do it because the ancestors just... said we were supposed to?"

"Do you listen to our ancestors?" He asked, arching a brow.

Xander hesitated. "Actually... yeah, we sort of do. I mean, it was our ancestors that decided that we were a race that went to war, and that we were a species that divided itself after those brother gods, with the prime and the alpha and all... and my mother keeps showing up in our dreams and complaining about things, so yeah. I guess we sort of do listen to our ancestors."

"Then I suppose that answers your questions."

"Why do you always have to be so damn logical?" Xander groaned, and rolled over a little until he was laying on his stomach, his hands pillowing under his head on the other's chest. "Okay, so maybe we get told that we're doing it because of ancestors, or... okay, basically what I'm asking is... does this mean you're about to go dragging us all on a pilgrimage to the Underverse?"

"Been considering it," the other said, finally.

"Why?" Xander groaned, frowning.

"Because you're not the only one who gets dreams."

He blinked at his mate, confused. "I... I don't understand."

Riddick shook his head, and closed his eyes as he leaned back into the pillows, deceptively relaxed looking. Xander had long ago learned that Riddick never really relaxed, he was always on edge and always ready to spring back into battle. Even when he slept, his muscles were corded as though ready to strike.

"...are you saying you had a dream about this?" Xander whispered, as though scared of the answer. "About... the pilgrimage, and all?"

Riddick opened a single eye, considering him for a moment, then nodded.

"...who talked to you in your dream?" He asked, curiously. "Was it Aereon? My mother? Some other ancestor that's never showed up before?"

"The elemental bitch." He said, finally.

"Aereon," Xander sighed. "She really likes meddling in our dreams, huh? I'm surprised she hasn't shown up to complain in my dreams again... I mean, I'm okay with her not showing up, because her showing up in my dreams usually means you've knocked me up again, but..."

Riddick snorted.

"Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up." He sighed softly, then murmured, "We should probably get some sleep. Otherwise, we're never going to be able to keep up with the kids in the morning. Especially since you promised your daughter that she could learn to fight... try not to cut her up as much as you cut me up, back in the day, all right?"

"You smell good when you bleed, bitch." He grinned.

"So do you, not the point, try not to make her bleed." He rolled his eye, and curled into him. "Sleep, Riddick, will you? You stress me out when you're all serious and awake."

  
 


	3. Red Queen - Lay it where Childhood's dreams are twined

 

 Vaako walked slowly up behind his Lavelle, not wanting to startle him, but his leather boots always didn't make much sound on the plasteel floors. Padding slowly up beside him, hands draped behind his back, he cleared his throat, quietly.

Xander didn't look up from the window that he was standing in front of, the whole vista of the verse - or at least the portion that they could see from this particular viewing part - spread out in front of him. It was vast, the verse, system upon system spread out before them, all full of people and wars and battles and creatures and death. It was beautiful and terrifying, making a person feel all at once insignificant and tiny in comparison, and mighty in strong for having seen vast stretches of it. There were still whole systems out there that had never even heard of Furyans, let alone seeing them.

And somewhere out there, like a tiny speck of light in the span of the enormity of the verse, was a small green and blue planet that Xander had once called home.

Still called home, when he was honest about it.

Vaako cleared his throat again.

Xander sighed, heavily, and pushed off the railing he was leaning on, turning to face the other man before leaning back on the railing again. "...yes, Vaako?"

"Are you all right?" He asked, seriously, dark eyes meeting one silver-blue one. The lights were off in the viewing room, except for the very barest security lights, and Xander hated wearing the goggles, really. They were heavy and irritating, and he had never looked nearly as badass as Riddick did, when he wore his. He just sort of looked like a kid playing dress-up or something.

"Why would you ask that, Vaako? I'm fine."

"I ask because my wife tells me that she has had your children since very early this morning, and because your mate is in the map room, refusing to talk to anyone, but spreading out massive star charts."

"We're going to find Aereon, remember?" He shrugged. "We have to find the elemental witch and ask her a few questions."

"Is this about the pilgrimage?" Vaako asked, frowning.

"...how did you...? No, never mind, I don't even want to know how you knew, you just know me better than I know myself, I've sort of started to get used to that," Xander rolled his eye, shaking his head. "Not even thinking. Okay, so.... what, you're here to gloat about the fact that you've managed to get us on this whole pilgrimage track? Because if you're really here to tell me 'told you so' I may have to punch you, Vaako."

"I would never do that, Xander," he said, calmly, leaning on the railing himself.

"Okay, so... we're thinking of pilgrimage, yeah." He shrugged, looking down at the floor, which he kicked at with scuffed boots, frowning slightly. He didn't look like the spiritual leader of a whole race of war like people, but Xander had never really cared what people really thought of his looks. Well, that wasn't entirely true, he did care. But he didn't care enough to change it. "I mean, we're the Furyan's leaders, maybe it's time we thought about things like that, I guess. Not that I really want to, but there are certain things a Lavelle and a Lord Marshall have to think about, right?" He hesitated. "...I still can't believe we've actually stuck around this long."

"I rather expected you to take a shuttle and disappear many years ago," Vaako smirked slightly.

"Probably should have. Back when we first got here, we should have gone then." He sighed heavily. "Now we're too wrapped up in it, it's almost impossible to leave, now. I mean... we're... we're all these people have, now. Unless they decide to kill us, of course."

Vaako shook his head, smirking as he looked out over the the dark shadows of the room.

"What, you can't say your wife hasn't tried to suggest that you off me and become the new Lavelle," he snickered, nudging the other man's shoulder. "I know the Dame Vaako, she's all for that 'keep what you kill' thing."

"I could never be Lavelle," he pointed out. "You have to be born into that."

"Oh come on, it's not that big of a deal, being born into a royal family," he waved that off. "Anyone can do that. Look at my kids. They all did it."

He shook his head. "Because their fathers were members of the royal family."

"Oh hell no, Riddick and I are not incestuous. Only I was in the royal family," he held up his hands. "Riddick was just a kickass alpha, he wasn't part of the whole... royal thing. He's Lord Marshall honestly. He kills the big guy, he gets his job. That's how the thing works. I just was born into it. I didn't do anything to earn this whole... thing."

"You are a good Lavelle."

"Oh don't humour me, Vaako," he rolled his eyes. "No one even knows what a Lavelle does anymore, remember? I'm the first one that we've had in thirty years, and even if there had been one before, like my mother... no one really remembers what it was like to have a Lavelle. Honest truth, I'm pretty shitty at this job. So has Riddick decided we're declaring war on the elementals, yet? You know he loves declaring war on people when he gets bored."

"Not last I heard," Vaako smirked slightly.

"Shame... maybe if we decide to fight them, we'll spend less time worrying about bullshit like going on a pilgrimage. Not really a fan of that whole... plan."

"I can tell."

"So what brings you here, anyway?" Xander frowned, brows furrowing slightly as he considered the other man. "...this isn't the time you were planning on shanking me and taking my children as the things you keep when you kill, was it?"

"No," Vaako said, seriously. It bothered him, sometimes, that Xander treated things like this like a joke, when it was very serious to Vaako himself, but he'd also sort of gotten used to a sense of humour that wasn't really all that funny, at all. He had learned to appreciate it for what it was - a wall that Xander threw firmly up in front of himself. "Actually, I am here to speak to you about something else."

"Mm. Anything interesting?"

Vaako held up a data pad, handing it over.

Xander took it, frowning slightly as he flicked through the pictures that were on the screen, then lifted his head, looking at the other. "It's a ship. So?"

"It's a merc vessel." He said, frowning. "Fairly small, but it's been following us for days now."

He blinked. "And no one thought to mention this?"

"We didn't realize it was following us at first," Vaako frowned, crossing his arms over his chest. "For weeks, we were on Athos Seven, and when we left, we were actually traveling in fairly well traveled trade routes. So when a vessel started to travel the same direction as us, we didn't think anything of it. That sort of thing can easily happen, any time. There was no point to bring it up. But we left the trade routes behind last night, and they're still following."

"Have you been able to track it's numbers to an owner?"

"No, just to the Mercenary Guild. It's a company owned ship."

"Of course it is," Xander grumbled slightly. "I want it monitored closely. If it tries to interfere with anything..."

"Destroy on sight?" Vaako suggested.

"Well, it could be a friend of ours," he laughed, shaking his head. "Not likely, in a merc vessel, but it could be possible. So how about we hold off on the destroying, and just get on the capturing it, all right?"

He hesitated, but nodded.

"I just... don't like the looks of it." He frowned. "I don't like mercs."

"Seeing as your somewhat sordid history with them has generally been mostly to your disadvantage..."

"You don't even know the half of it," Xander shook his head.

It was true. Vaako had heard that it was mercs that landed Xander in the Hades slam a few years back, and it was mercs that had kept him separated from his mate for a long time, and it was a merc that had sliced his eye out of his head. But Vaako didn't know about Johns, the merc that he'd once considered a friend - at least, before he tried to rape him - and the mercs that had landed Riddick in the slam that he'd had to bust Xander out of in the first place. And it had been mercs that had killed a child that Xander had once fought to save, it had been mercs that had cost him the first four years of his daughter's life, it was mercs that had nearly lost him everything several times over.

Xander hated mercs.

And if Xander hated them, Riddick's hatred of them made Xander look downright pleasant to the whole merc group as a whole.

Vaako frowned at the data pad, and admitted, "It's a rather large vessel, Xander."

"Yeah, I noticed," he frowned, considering that. "Do you think it's an actual collection vessel, or is it just a foray mission? You know, happens to be following us because we might lead him to something interesting?"

"Or perhaps they're after the two largest bounties in the verse," Vaako suggested, arching a brow.

"You're kidding, right?" Xander snorted. "We're traveling with the largest fleet of dangerous killers in the verse. Who the hell would be insane enough to actually try to capture me and Riddick off of our ships?"

"Maybe they're not trying to get on the ships." The other frowned, and Xander realized now that this was the reason why the other had sought him out to warn him about this. "They could be waiting til we land."

"...if you're suggesting that we should have some kind of bodyguard contingent because you're worried someone is going to grab us... that's not happening." Xander said, firmly.

"Xander..."

"Not. Happening." He pointed at him. "I have had more than enough of being caged and locked in and held like some kind of animal in my life, Vaako. I have seen the inside of slams, and I have been trapped in cryo for years, you know how much Furyans hate cryo, our brains never fucking shut up. So I am not going to be surrounded by a bunch of soldiers and told what to do. I am going to keep on doing what I'm doing, and I imagine that I will be doing so with Riddick at my side. Or you. Or the kids. You know, it's not really important who I'm with. But I can take care of myself, Vaako. I don't need a guard."

"I know that you can take care of yourself," he said, holding up his hands. "I have seen so many times. But if these are mercenaries after the bounties..."

"Our bounties are much higher if we're alive." He pointed out. "And there's no slam that can hold either of us."

"No, perhaps that's true. But will the Furyan nation survive if their leaders are gone?"

He snorted. "Yeah... I mean, it's survived this long."

"It was swallowed up by the Necromongers." He pointed out, arching a brow. Why could everyone do that brow arching thing except Xander? "A fanatic cult that broke off from the main group and decided that their way was better. I rather believe that our species is apparently not quite as hardy as everyone believes."

"Okay, good point," Xander conceded. "But still, Vaako. No bodyguards. I can take the mercs. It'll be fine. Just... capture the vessel, should the opportunity ever come up."

He frowned, and nodded.

"Oh, and Vaako... I need to send a message. Somewhere. Do you think the elemental planet will have one of those delivery systems? I mean... is their technology up to that yet?"

Vaako considered that for a moment, then finally nodded. "I believe they do, they have advanced that much."

"Well, that's good." He nodded, crossing his own arms over his chest.

"Where in the verse are you planning on sending a message?" His friend, his adviser, asked.

"To earth."

"Earth." Vaako repeated.

He rolled his eyes. "Remember, we've talked about this before... the backwards planet that doesn't even realize that space travel is a thing yet, even though this ship uses less fancy technology than Buffy had in her CD player, back home? Yeah. That planet."

"You are aware that any family you had left behind there has likely changed, correct?" He frowned. "You have never once heard back..."

“What's in the Underverse, Vaako?” He asked, abruptly.

The other man looked at him sharply, startled by the question, then relaxed slightly, and admitted, “Only those that have seen truly knows what secrets the Underverse holds. I do know that it is the land of the dead, it is where all the faithful go in their due time, so presumably, a person would find those that have gone before them, there. You would find the dead.”

Xander frowned, twisting to look out at the stars spread out ahead of them, again. “What good is that? What good is a pilgrimage to the world of the _dead_?”

Vaako hesitated. “Religion isn't usually the sort of thing I question, Xander.”

“Well, it's _exactly_ the sort of thing I question,” he grumbled, crossing his arms again. “I have seen insane things happen in the name of religion, but in the name of religious _values_ , I saw a bunch of ordinary perfectly rational people act like idiots. I’ve actually seen it twist people into horrifying monsters after their deaths, when religion becomes something they hold onto just to hold onto their own past... I’ve seen people do twisted things because of their _faith_. So I always question things that people blindly follow.”

“I don't remember my life before conversion, not wholly.” Vaako said, slowly. “But I remember being comforted that there _was_ something to believe.”

“I wasn't raised Furyan, Vaako.”

“Not sure the people out there know that.”

“I don't want anyone to know the truth,” he said, quickly.

Vaako frowned. “Xander?”

“Vaako, when the mercs found out I was traveling with Riddick – they didn't even know I was sleeping with him, just knew that I was _traveling_ with him – they cut my eye out assuming they could torture me into telling them where he was. I had to leave my daughter with a friend, I couldn't even tell her she _was_ my daughter, because if I did, those mercs would go and torture Riddick's location out of her!” He took a deep breath, fingers curled around the edges of the railing he was leaning on, brows furrowed tightly over his silver eye and his eye patch, furiously. “My family... on earth... they don't even know where I am, or what my life is about... or even what a fucking Furyan _is_. They've never even _heard_ of one. But if they knew that I had a mother and friends, back home...” He shook his head. “You know mercs, Vaako. They won't rest until they've gotten to Earth, found them, and tried to torture the information of where I am out of them. And they don't even know if I’m _alive_!”

“So they'd never be able to find you that way,” he frowned.

“I don't care if they _find_ me or not that way, I care whether or not they torture my family in order to find me!” He shouted, knuckles white as he gripped the edge of the railing. “They're not Furyans, Vaako!”

“And they can't take care of themselves,” he murmured.

“...Buffy can take care of them,” he grumbled, lowering his voice, finally. “If I didn't know I was the only Furyan on that planet, I would've thought she was one.”

“...how do you know you were the only Furyan on your planet?” Vaako frowned.

Xander blinked at his friend. “...what?”

“How do you know you were the only Furyan on Earth?” He said, again.

“Well, technically, I don't know that.” He admitted, thinking hard for a moment, frowning. “But on the other hand, I also know that she wasn't a Furyan like me. I really know she wasn't. She was a Slayer, they're a.... sort of mystical race of girls that are made to kill things, evil things. They're just normal girls, really, they're humans, not Furyans.”

“Ancestral thing?” He suggested, frowning slightly.

“Yeah, it's a... magical lineage thing.” He nodded, straightening up as he scratched at the back of his neck, sighing. “One girl, chosen in all the world...”

“Maybe there are Furyans in your planet's past,” he said, quietly.

Xander rolled his eyes. “If Buffy was a Furyan, her mother would have had to be Furyan too. I know how genetics work.”

“I'm not certain you do, actually,” Vaako smirked. “Because if her ancestors were Furyans, far enough back, then some of the traits could have been hidden in her family line for generations. She wouldn't be full Furyan, not even close, she would have been mostly human, I imagine, but there are _traits_ that can be carried forward, like the instinct for war, the instincts for battle, the strength and the speed.”

He hesitated, then shook his head. “Well. As fascinating as all of this is, there is no way to prove it one way or the other. We're something like... ten years away from Earth, Vaako.”

“Realistically.” He admitted.

“...so I’ll never see them again.”

“If it is that much of a concern for you,” he leaned his hip on the railing, considering his friend, his leader, seriously. “Then there are possibilities, ways to get home faster. There are storehouses of power that can be accessed for our ships. It's usually reserved for times of war, but... if it was really something that you needed... these ships can be pushed to their absolute limits. They can do in hours what takes other ships weeks. A journey of ten years can be pressed into perhaps six months. It is dangerous, and it is difficult, so generally, it is not _recommended_ , but it is _possible_.”

Xander hesitated, considering that for a few long minutes, then murmured, “Thank you, Vaako. But I’ve been _here_ , I’ve been... away... for close to about fifteen years. My life on earth... it's gone. I'm not the same person that I was, back then."

"Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?" The other asked, lightly.

Xander snorted. "You're kidding, right? I was the biggest dork in the school. Well, me and Willow were, really. Anyway, no. No, it's totally a good thing that I'm not on Earth anymore... if I had developed anything the way I had here, I would have been building myself up for a very lucrative life as a convict in state's prison. Or as the head of some kind of crazy cult. I mean, imagine if Riddick had still faced you down on the slam, but I hadn't been there, and he had still done that blue hand print thing, but without me there to like... wake all the Furyans? Picture this... I'm at home, probably still in my mother's basement or something, because I suppose I wouldn't have slept in cryo..." He hesitated, doing some quick mental math. "So I'm probably a pizza delivery boy, or something, or maybe an enforcer for the mob, since I did still have the whole violent thing going for me, and I'm still hiding in Buffy's shadow and still hiding from Tony's drunken rages in the basement. By this point, I've probably ended up in a slam at least once, unless Giles somehow managed to get me out of it, but I don't think librarians have got that kind of clout. And suddenly, out of nowhere, a blue hand print shows up on my chest, all glowly and freaky. Either my best friend stakes me cause I'm clearly some kind of bumpy, or I start a cult of people worshiping the freaky blue hand print. I'd never know it was the Wrath of the Furyans, I'd never know who I was, or that I wasn't human." He jerked the collar of his vest open, exposing the blue hand print, which had never really gone away. It didn't pulse and glow bright anymore, but it never went away, and whenever Xander got particularly angry, it would still flare. "I would have never known that this meant I was something, Vaako. That I was actually worth a damn."

"You are worth a damn, my friend." He reached forward, setting his hand on Xander's shoulder, expression intense. "You have always been worth a damn."

"Thanks Vaako." He sighed, closing his eyes. "I just don't know how to deal with this."

"You could just forgo facing the elementals and go on the pilgrimage," the other man suggested.

"Somehow, I don't think that's really a good idea," he smirked, shaking his head.

"Why ever not?" Vaako frowned. "If you go on this pilgrimage, you may find yourself answering a number of your questions. After all, are you not the one concerned with what the faith of the Furyans means and what it is supposed to mean to you as Lavelle?"

"Sure, but that's not the point," he groaned softly. "The point is I don't see... well, the point."

"Perhaps you would if you actually tried."

Xander rolled his eyes, and thumped Vaako on the shoulder. "We really need to get you an actual mate, rather than just a spouse, so you can get yourself knocked up and find something other than me and Riddick to focus on. Babies would do that nicely. So keep an eye on that merc ship for me, yeah?"

"Of course," he agreed, finally, shaking his head.

"You're a good man, Vaako. A bit pompous sometimes, but that's what makes you awesome. You're like... space G-man. With much cooler hair. All right. I'm going to... go."

"Are you certain that you don't just want the gunners to shoot the ship down?"

"Naw," Xander called over his shoulder. "Even I've stolen merc ships before. Could be a friend, you never know!"

"...could also be an enemy," the other murmured, once he'd left.

  
 

——

  
 

The sun was paler here, than it was on earth. That was always something that Xander had noticed, but never really thought twice about. It was lighter, though, as though the sun wasn't quite as big or quite as bright, and he supposed that made sense, when he walked around through the mossy fields, that it was a little cooler here than he remembered it being, back in California, and the trees and plants seemed different. Like maybe they didn't feed the same way plants back home did - but they were still similar enough to the things he'd seen in parks and in vacant lots back home that he never really seemed to question it.

Trailing his fingers over the mossy side of a tall, towering tree, Xander hesitated.

He'd heard something.

It didn't sound like footsteps, though that was what he was used to hearing when he dreamed. He knew he was dreaming, because the only time he ever came to this place, whatever it was supposed to represent to his sleeping and fatigue stupid brain, was when he was dreaming.

Frowning, he ducked under a tree branch, and moved closer to the sound. At first, he thought it sort of sounded like giant teeth grinding against each other, sort of a mockery of the sound he heard inside his own head when he bit down on an ice cube, the squeak crack of the ice breaking and his teeth gnashing together. But it was just a touch too sharp, too metallic for that, and he frowned, trying to place it. It was a familiar sound, whatever it was, the kind that called to him and lured him closer.

As he walked, the ground beneath his bare feet changed slightly, from a thick loamy dirt with grass to a pebbled rocky path that spread out until he finally ended up on a flat, stone lined path. It wasn't hard on his feet, though, because all the stones were smooth and round, and he realized that he must be walking on a dried riverbed.

Ducking under another tree branch, Xander finally found what the sound was when he turned around a dip in the path.

There was a man sitting on a large stone, one knee curled up towards him, the other leg spread out before him, and on his curled up knee he had a whetstone, and the sound that Xander had been hearing was the constant slick slick slick of the knife that the man held sliding against the stone, sharpening it. It was odd, though, that this wasn't Riddick, in his dream. He'd seen a few people in his dreams, but Xander had long managed to notice the difference between his dreams of this world, wherever it was, and his regular dreams. In his regular dreams, he might be dressed in a blue and pink cocktail dress and serving live crayfish to Buffy and the President, or he might be tap dancing for penguins while Mary Poppins kept time on a metronome, or he might have been dressed in a toga and bellowing out the soundtrack to CATS on the stage somewhere. He'd sort of gotten used to his dreams not making sense, because when have dreams ever really made sense. But when he dreamed of this planet, the dreams were lucid, they made sense, and he always remembered them.

They weren't really dreams, he didn't think.

Xander had pretty much come to two possibilities - either he was having some kind of psychic communication with some telepath somewhere, or this was some kind of side effect of his being Lavelle. He'd asked the Purifier, if he'd ever remembered anything like this happening when he had been Lavelle, and the other man had smiled, almost sadly, and just said, "Embrace the dreams when you get them," which really hadn't answered Xander's question at all.

He'd seen Aereon in his dreams more than he'd seen her in real life, and he'd seen Riddick in his dreams before. He'd even met his own dead mother in dreams before.

But he'd never seen this man before.

He was sort of a hulking man, the kind that Xander would describe as a pro wrestler, or something, with long, dark brown hair that was tied back into a low ponytail, though a few stray curls were curled on his forehead. He wore a massive skin of some animal - a wolf, maybe, or a gray bear, if such a thing existed, maybe Xander should have paid more attention in bio after all - draped over his shoulders like a cape. There were feathers in his hair, too, one long white one almost tucked behind his ear like it was a pen or something. It was a strange sort of look, one that he wasn't really used to, yet, but one that also recognized.

Xander stepped closer, trying to figure out if he knew this man - or if he should know this man, because that was possible too - from anything he could see. He couldn't place him.

But that didn't stop the man from seeming almost eerily familiar.

"Are you just going to stand there and stare, boy, or are you going to get yourself to work?" The man asked, abruptly, and looked up at him.

Xander sucked in a sharp breath.

The man's eyes were like mercury caught in a moment of time, like a droplet of pure liquid metal in each of his eyes. Eyes like his and Riddick's, and they brooked about as much mercy as Riddick's did, too.

He hesitated, then glanced at the man's feet and realized that there were several knives lying on the river bed, and he finally realized what the man was talking about.

"Hey, I can do a little honest work," Xander shrugged, and sank to sit on the floor of the river bed, reaching out to grab a knife that strangely looked exactly like the ulaks that hung above his and Riddick's bed, back in the land of the awake and the living. Picking up a large, flat stone, he spat on the surface, and began carefully sliding the blade across it, sharpening it with a practiced hand.

"Pay attention, boy. You don't want to dull that knife," the man said, firmly.

"I'm aware." He muttered, leaning forward over it as he worked. Funny, whenever he dreamed, his hair never seemed to be actually done up, and dark curls sort of hang around his face, so he could hide behind it and felt sort of like a girl. It was a funny sort of thing. Vaako's hair was even longer than his, and no one had ever accused him of looking like a girl. Maybe Xander needed to shave the sides of his head. No, wait, he couldn't do that, his head was lumpy, he needed the hair to hide that. Damn. "I do know what I'm doing. I've sharpened a lot of knives in my life."

"Don't sass me, boy." The other said, sharply.

"Stop calling me boy." Xander said, not looking up from the knife. He had to concentrate on tasks like this more than other people did, sometimes. He only had one eye, so his depth perception was off. "I have a name."

"Do you, now?" He growled.

Xander did lift his head at that, and blinked at him, realizing that maybe he should have actually given it. He'd been pretty bad at that his whole life, forgetting to actually give his name to people when he was all 'I do have a name'. Clearing his throat, he nodded, and looked down at the knife again. "Xander."

"That's not a name." The man said, and there was a soft slide of metal on stone again.

He lifted his head, frowning. "...no, that's a name. It is. It is very much my name. I mean, I know it's not an amazing name, or anything, but it is..."

"It's a short form." The man said, settling back slightly, his hands just resting on his thighs, the knife still, at least for now. The man had a stern look to his face, but there were little crinkled lines at the corners of his eyes, and Xander realized that this was a man that was often accustomed to smiling brightly, and that was why he had smile lines. Somehow, that made him feel much better about the whole situation. "Is it not? Some kind of nick name that a person might be called by their friends. But it is not a name."

He sighed, and nodded, slightly reluctantly. "That's true, actually. My real name is Alexander."

"That is a good name," the man said, and there was a quirk of a smile at the corner of his mouth, the first hint that Xander had had of why the man had the smile lines.

"Oh yeah?" he grinned, slightly.

"It is my name," The man said, nodding his head.

He blinked at him, stunned. "...it's your name?"

The man - Alexander - nodded again, and went back to polishing the knife, rhythmically, methodically.

For a moment, Xander was pretty sure that wherever he was, this dream world, was some kind of time travel place or something, and that the man sitting in front of him was actually him, in the future. It would make sense, with the feathers, with the graying dark hair, with the bright silver eyes - and then he remembered that the man sitting in front of him had two eyes, and Xander definitely only had one. Right. So he wasn't him from the future, which took care of the questions he was about to ask about whether or not he'd been sent back in time to find John Conner or not, and Xander just cleared his throat. "So you're Alexander too, huh? Kind of a weird coincidence, huh?"

"Not really," he looked up at him, and the corner of his mouth quirked again. "My wife named you after me."

Xander blinked at him.

For a long moment, a really long moment, he didn't get it. He really didn't. It just seemed like such an alien thing to say to someone, that it wasn't until he had worked it over and over in his mind for several minutes, swearing that he could smell smoke, that he realized he knew what the man meant. That he knew who this man was and why he had a little smirk as he'd said that. It wasn't a joke. It was serious - but it also was sort of funny.

He sucked in a sharp breath, and gasped, "You're my father."

"I am." The man nodded, and quietly set the knife and the stone on the dry river bed floor with the others, and considered him for a very long moment. "I have waited a very long time to actually meet you, my son."

He shifted forward, moving up onto his knees so that he could see him properly. "Are you dead?"

"Yes," the man nodded, smirking again. "I am. I refused to convert, so the Lord Marshall had me killed. It was a better example for him than to force me to convert, as he had with the rest of my people. My wife, your mother, was one of the few that managed to escape the massacre of Furya."

Xander shifted again, so that he was standing, and moved closer to his father, feeling sort of numb inside. His father, all these years, had always been a blank spot in his mind. When he'd really tried to focus and try to imagine what his real father might have looked like, he'd always sort of just managed to imagine Tony Harris, but with silver Furyan eyes. This man looked nothing like Tony Harris - he was older, sure, but he was still robust and muscular, and there were glints of humour in his silver eyes that Xander had never seen in the eyes of the man that had raised him. Honestly, despite his age, he was pretty sure that this was a man that could have taken Riddick, and probably would have made him pay in blood for... well, anything. He didn't really have a reason why his own father might attack his mate, but unlike Xander, his father totally could have taken him. "I... don't really know what to say. I guess I never figured I'd meet my father."

"I did expect to meet my youngest son," Alexander smirked, and held up his hands, calmly. "Come here. Let me get a proper look at you."

He grinned, and stepped closer, taking his father's hands.

Alexander stood, and Xander found himself looking up - and up - at him, and swallowed. Alexander was considerably taller than he was, which was a little unnerving. The man looked him up and down, then tapped the eye patch that Xander wore over the hollow that once was his right eye. "What is this?"

Xander reached up to move the eye patch off, revealing what was underneath.

He still had an eyelid, but it didn't really close like it used to. He supposed that if he had tried to get a glass eyeball or something, it might have continued to act normally, but he never did, and it seemed stupid to try and keep the eyelid intact when there was nothing in it, so it had sort of stopped blinking, eventually. It was still there, but it didn't try to cover the gap that had once been his eye, anymore, either. His eye had healed enough that there was a lot of scarring inside the socket itself, just a mess of pink skin and that was all. There was no scarring outside of his eye - the merc that had cut it out, Toombs, had been almost surgically accurate when he took it out - but it still looked a little alarming. "Someone cut it out."

His father hissed, and his brows furrowed over his own bright silver-blue eyes. "Who did this?"

"A merc, called Toombs. Riddick killed him, don't worry." He grinned. "He was trying to torture some information out of me... obviously I didn't give him any of it. It still makes things a little inconvenient, though, I sort of wish I still had depth perception."

Alexander nodded, and let his hands drop back down to his sides.

Relieved, he shifted the eye patch back down. He'd never say that he was ashamed of his eye, or what was left of it, anyway, it was just that people tended to stare at it, if there wasn't the eye patch over it, whether they really intended to stare, or not. "It's not so bad, anymore, anyway. Hasn't hurt in years."

"You said Riddick killed him."

He nodded, shifting the little patch. "Yeah. He gets pissed when people hurt me. I mean, I would have killed him, if I'd had the chance, but Riddick sort of got there first, so don't be afraid, I'm not a weakling, or anything."

"Who is Riddick?"

Xander glanced up. He supposed he'd gotten so used to people in his dreams knowing everything that he'd sort of forgotten that just because he was dreaming and these were all some kind of projection of his subconscious or something, didn't mean that they'd necessarily be able to know everything that he knew. He hesitated, then said, "Riddick, my mate."

"You are mated." He murmured.

"Well, yeah. Way I understand how Furyans work, there's kind of this whole thing where Primes end up with Alphas, and the gender thing isn't really the point, so don't you go all grumpy that I ended up with a man. If I was with a woman, I'd never be able to have any children. That's how these things work."

"...you have children?"

Xander looked up, and hesitated, before nodding. "Three."

Alexander's stern face softened slightly, and he settled down on the rock again, motioning to the space in front of him. "Sit. Tell me."

They talked for hours. Or it felt like hours, Xander had never really been able to figure out if time actually passed differently in these dreams than it did in the real world, but he was pretty sure it actually didn't. The time he spent on the Hunter-Gratzner, he'd dreamed the entire time, and it had felt so vividly real. He really hadn't lost any time or anything, there. He was pretty sure that when it felt like hours, it really was hours. He told his father - his father, wasn't that a wild thought - about the birth of Ziza, and how he'd had to leave her behind with the Imam, only to discover that Helion Prime was going to be the next target for the Necromongers. He told him about Wills, how he'd carried her while hiding in a prison slam with the hellhounds, how he'd nearly lost her when he delivered after the wrath of the Furyans thing. He told him about Jesse, about how he had been on the battle field, heavily pregnant, slashing and killing his enemies as his unborn child had kicked at his insides, as eager to be out there killing as his father was. Alexander's face was soft as he listened to the stories, and he laughed, outright, often.

It made Xander feel like he had a family. Like this is maybe what his life should have been, growing up. He'd never trade Jessica for the world, but Tony... he would have killed to have Alexander at home, the one he came home to at the end of the night.

"I dearly wish I could introduce you to your siblings," Alexander said, finally, after a long moment of silence.

Xander didn't register what he'd said for a moment, then bolted up. "Siblings!? I have siblings?!"

"Several," he nodded, surprised by the other's alarm. "Furyan families are often fairly large."

"But I have - well, where are they?"

"I do not know," Alexander shook his head.

"Well, are they dead like you and mother, or... are they out there somewhere?!"

"I do not know," he said again, shaking his head. "I do not know what to tell you, Xander. They're not with me, that is all I know."

"But you must have known if they were converted, or...?!" He was grasping at straws, now.

"No. I was killed first, when I refused to convert." Alexander shook his head. "It took six men to pin me down, and two more to finally kill me." It was with not a small amount of pride that he said that, too. "So I do not know what became of my children. Your brothers and sisters. It may be that they are within the ranks of Necromonger army now, but there would be no way to know that. After all, they have become the enemy now."

"No, but - I saved them!" Xander pushed himself up onto his knees, now. "I woke the Necromonger army! The Furyans in the ranks killed all the non-Furyans. We have an army of Furyans now!"

"We?" He repeated, brows furrowed.

"My mate. I told you about him. Riddick." He nodded. "He's Lord Marshall."

Alexander sucked in a sharp breath, eyes dark and almost murderous. "He has no right. He is not of the line..."

"Hello, he's mated to the Lavelle?" Xander held up his hand, arching his brows up towards his hairline. "So I don't see what the problem is..."

"You were not Lavelle." The other said, looking slightly stunned.

Xander blinked at him.

This was a... shock. He'd sort of gotten used to being the Lavelle. He'd really gotten used to be a Lavelle, actually. After all, even his mother had called him that, and Aereon had called that, and Vaako and the other Furyans were sort of obsessed with him being the Lavelle. To hear his own father telling him that he wasn't the Lavelle, that - that made his head hurt, actually. "I... I don't understand."

"Your brother was the Lavelle. He was raised to be the Lavelle..." Alexander said, slowly.

"Mother called me that. Before she died." Xander said slowly. "She called me Lavelle."

His father drew in a deep breath. "...then your brother is dead."

He winced.

"Your brother is dead, and she knew that, then. Otherwise, she never would have called you that. Never. She knew..." Alexander slumped back, and in that moment, Xander really actually doubted that this man could take Riddick. This man couldn't take anyone. He was old, really, older than he looked, maybe. And in that moment, he really looked like a defeated old man. "...my oldest son, dead."

"...maybe it was his due time?" Xander suggested, quietly.

His eyes sparked, again. "It was not his due time! He was still young, it was - it was not his due time!"

"Sorry." Xander said, slightly sheepishly, blinking up at the man. Clearing his throat, he said, "Look, I'm sorry that I pissed you off and all and reminded you of your dead kids, but... look, even if he wasn't mated to me, Riddick totally earned being Lord Marshall. He kept what he killed."

Alexander's head snapped back up. "...he killed the Lord Marshall?"

"Impressively, too." He grinned. "It was totally hot. He stabbed him with a Necromonger knife, right in the top of his head, and he just... snapped the blade off. It was probably one of the most impressive killings I've ever seen."

The other man slowly smiled, and reached forward to curl his hand over Xander's shoulder. "Then you have done well, my son."

He grinned. "I sure think so. I mean, most of the time. Sometimes he just pisses me off, but I sort of think that's sort of normal for marriages. Not that we're married, we're mated, but... you know what I mean." Shaking his head, Xander looked up at the sky. It wasn't just blue like the sky over California had always been, it was a sort of silvery gold colour, and the sun was never quite as bright as he remembered. It was nice, though, because he was able to walk around through this world without needing his goggles, and anywhere he could go without needing to wear those damn goggles and getting pain was a good thing as far as he was concerned. "But Riddick and I... well, it's hard to explain. I don't know if I'd say I'd love him, at least not in the traditional sense, but I can't even imagine trying to live without him. He's as essential to me as breathing, do you know what I mean?"

"He's your mate," his father nodded, patting his shoulder. "I understand."

"Good." He grinned. "Because explaining it to anyone whose never had a mate of their own would probably be really difficult. At least you get the whole... Furyan mating thing. I didn't even get it at first."

"His heart beats the same time as yours." He said, with a light nod. "And were he dead, your heart would not beat."

"Yeah," Xander murmured, quietly. "That's about as close as I can get to describing it."

Alexander nodded, and cupped his jaw for a moment. "There is something I need to tell you, my son. I was sent here to deliver a message.'

He nodded, frowning. "What is it?"

"Time is growing short."

Xander blinked at him. "... that's the message? That's the whole thing? Time is growing short?"

He nodded, and said, seriously, "Time is growing short. Very short. Soon there will be none left, and if we reach that time, then it is too late."

"...that's sort of cryptic," Xander said, slowly.

"It is essential that you deal with this now, Xander, before it is too late." Alexander said, fiercely. "If you do not deal with this soon enough, you will lose everything that you and your mate have worked for, have tried to achieve."

"Okay, sure," He nodded, quickly. "But you're going to have to tell me what exactly I'm supposed to be dealing with before you leave, because seriously, I just need to know..."

"You'll know." He said, quickly, shaking Xander's shoulders. "Remember! Time grows short!"

"I get it!" He yelped. "Stop shaking me!"

Riddick just slapped him, instead.

Xander gaped up at his mate, then swatted at him, snapping, "That didn't mean wake me up some other way, you asshole! What the hell was that for?!"

"You were thrashing." Riddick frowned, pushing Xander firmly down to the bed, and that was when he realized that his lover was actually straddling his thighs as he was pushing him down, and began running his hands over Xander's shoulders and arms, as though searching for something.

"I'm really not in the mood for sex, Riddick," he grumbled, shifting his jaw, confused about the taste of iron in his jaw. "Seriously."

"Bullshit," he frowned, but he didn't really look like he was actually going to argue the point much. His attention was on running his fingers over Xander's face and jaw and up into his hair to investigate his head and his scalp. Xander had sort of gotten used to this over the years - every time there was the slightest possibility that he might have been injured, his over protective mate went all mama bear on him, checking for even the lightest hints that he'd been injured or that he was bleeding somewhere. The only place where Xander could figure he was bleeding was the inside of his mouth, and that, apparently, was only because he'd bitten the inside of his cheek. "You were trying to get free."

"From what?" he sighed, finally just giving in and going limp beneath his lover. "I wasn't dreaming of anything terrifying."

"What were you dreaming of?" Riddick prompted, frowning as he finally slid off of Xander's thighs and instead lay beside him, watching him seriously.

"My father." Xander rolled onto his side to face him, bracing his chin in his hand. "His name is - was - Alexander. He was Lord Marshall of the Furyans, I think. I mean, before the Necromongers full on converted them."

He nodded, seriously, considering that. "That was why you were Lavelle."

"Exactly," he nodded, brushing his fingers down the line of Riddick's nose. A strange thing to do, perhaps, but it helped him feel a little more grounded, to touch his lover and remind himself that this was real, that the world around them was what was real, that his dreams of talking to his dead father were just some kind of settling of the stew he'd eaten just before bedtime, or something. Ice cream dreams, not actually real. Still... Aereon had been right, back in the day, when she'd told him in his dreams that he was pregnant, and she really was a real person. And his mother had been right when she said that his love for Riddick - why did women always have to make things like what they had more soft and flowery and romantic anyway, why couldn't they just accept that Xander and Riddick were more together because the sex was incredible than because they were mutually in love with each other - was going to be the thing that saved the Furyan nation. So his dreams weren't really just something to be brushed off, they were clearly something to be paid attention to, but exactly how much attention was required. "...he said that he'd been sent to give me a message."

"And that message is?" Riddick rumbled, arching a single brow.

"Time is running short."

He just snorted.

"...do you know what he might have been referring to?" He asked, shifting closer. "I can't figure it out. I mean, maybe he's just referring to something else, but all I can think of is the pilgrimage we keep pushing off."

"Suddenly you want to go?" Riddick arched a brow.

"Fuck, no." Xander rolled his eyes, and flopped down as well. Side by side, they lay there on their sumptuous bed, staring up at the ceiling. "Not at all. But what if that's what he meant. He said once time was up, it was going to be too late."

"I wasn't aware it had an expiry date."

He snickered, and tugged Riddick's arm over, curling it on his stomach so that he could trace the lines in the palms of Riddick's hand. Riddick had massive hands, worn and callused. There was a story in them, the details of thousands of deaths and even more weapons handled, and Xander did, in fact, love his mate's hands. They were sort of perfect, far as he was concerned.

Riddick watched him, but didn't say anything more. It was moments like this that they actually seemed to get more communicated, than they ever did when they were trading words. Riddick was by nature a more silent, solitary creature, and Xander was by nature very much not. It was sort of an odd couple sort of thing, but it worked in a way that bewildered others. They didn't need to actually trade words. There was a heavy pregnancy to the silence that hovered around them, and that silence traded thoughts and intentions better to each other than any words did. It wasn't something that they could explain, because it wasn't as though either of them was actually telepathic or anything, there was just a quiet communication between them that didn't actually use words. He didn't really expect anyone to understand.

"Maybe we should just go pilgrimage."

"Or maybe we should do what the Lord Marshall decided," Riddick said, with a slight growl to his voice, and stood, heading towards the other side of the room. Xander shifted up, to watch him, but didn't move, otherwise. "Because the Lord Marshall has decided that we go and talk to the elementals."

"Suppose it doesn't really hurt the argument that you're the Lord Marshall does it?" He arched a brow.

Riddick smirked slightly as he tugged on a pair of pants.

"You know, it's not fair, pulling rank on a domestic dispute," he rolled his eyes, and shifted to finally roll off of the bed, padding towards his lover, quietly. Reaching his mate, Xander reached up to slowly slide his arms around Riddick's shoulders, just looking up at him for a moment, two silver eyes meeting one silver eye, more of that silent communication thing passing between them.

It was just for a moment, then Riddick dipped his head to kiss Xander, fiercely, almost attacking him with his mouth. Xander didn't protest, just pushed back with an equal fervor. Finally, he pulled back, and murmured, "Watch the children."

"Always." Xander murmured.

"Good." Riddick nodded, and stepped back from him, frowning.

Xander let his hands drop down to his sides, and just sighed softly, watching as his mate left the room, moving like a man with a purpose, like he knew where he was going and what he was doing.

Riddick always had been better at faking it than he was.


	4. Red Queen - In Memory's mystic band

 

 

  
 

"So that's the Elemental's planet?" Xander frowned.

Vaako nodded, crossing his arms slightly. The planet spinning slowly below them, in the view screen, was a little odd. About half of it was completely obscured by heavy clouds, so they weren't really able to see anything what lay under them. They sort of assumed that the cities, the ports, were under those heavy clouds, but it was really impossible to tell, because their equipment wouldn't pierce the thick cloud cover. And certainly none of the cities were in the other half of the planet, where they were no clouds, because there really wasn't any planet there. There was a wide ring around the centre of the massive floating mass of water and dirt and general planet, and that wide ring was a mess of fire and lava and volcanoes. It wasn't really a planet that most people would assume that a person could live - in fact, Xander was pretty sure this was the very kind of place that he would presume no human could live. It was a lot like the planet he'd escaped from, once before, the one that was a frozen wasteland on one side, and when the sun moved around the face it, was a burning hell of fire and lava, only this world was in a strange sort of opposite way. He assumed this was because there wasn't one large sun that hung over this planet - there was instead a small ring of suns, and instead of the planet circling around the sun, the small stars circled around it, like fucked up moons. He'd never seen anything like it, but it was a sort of terrifying thing.

The sort of thing he'd actually ask Willow was even possible, really, were she here.

But obviously it was possible, or it wouldn't be here, right in front of them. And it was there, just as though it was the most normal thing in the whole verse, even though the planet itself seemed to defy explanation or any form of sense.

It was actually sort of dementedly beautiful.

"So what's the plan, Lord Marshall?" Xander called, slightly cheekily, knowing that his mate was going to be glaring at his back, for the insolence.

And when he turned around the face the throne that Riddick was sprawled in, he wasn't disappointed.

He grinned, and padded over to the other's massive chair, sitting casually on the arm again, and sort of reveling in the way that Riddick was scowling at the image of the planet on the view screen. It wasn't like they could normally do, and just find the best place for them to park their armada, and burst in. To make matters worse, there was the whole issue of the peace treaty - some five years ago, when they had first taken over as Lord Marshall and Lavelle of the newly reincarnated Furyan nation, they had made a peace treaty with the Elementals.

It had been Aereon's idea. Xander hadn't really argued, because as much as she pestered him in his dreams, he held no ill will to her.

Riddick had hated the idea of the treaty, because he hated the fact that Aereon seemed to know too much about him, that she seemed to have insight that no other person should have, with the possible exception of the man he had sort of chosen to share his life with, and he didn't like that. He'd wanted to know her secrets, to know why she knew his future. Xander had been the one that had convinced him that this wasn't necessary.

Riddick didn't seem to have appreciated this convincing, in the end.

"Well, we can hardly just land." Vaako frowned as he moved forward to stand beside him. He'd become their right hand man in many of their tasks. "There are no clear places to land, and our targets can't lock on any locations. From the look of that planet, we'd end up landing in something that we wouldn't be able to get out of."

Xander nodded, idly brushing his fingertips over the back of Riddick's neck. "So what's the best plan, then?"

"The last thing they expect us to do." Riddick said, abruptly, and growled. "Land."

Vaako blinked at the Lord Marshall, stunned. "But... sir, I believe I just explained why such a thing would actually be impossible..."

"Don't call me sir," he growled, and stood, heading towards the view screen, and looked down at the instrument panel that one of the men was working on. The man hesitated, and started to shift his seat back, in case the other wanted to take his place. Riddick had been known to do that before. "Not the whole armada. Keep them out here, create a ring around this planet. If we give the word, destroy it."

Xander blinked at his mate. "...you are aware of the fact that we're going to be down on the planet with you, right?"

"No, you're not." He turned, scowling. "You're going to be here."

"Oh hell no." He slid off of the arm of the throne, marching towards Riddick, and jabbing him in the chest. "I have had more than enough of your tactics to keep me safe, they always involve me getting trapped on the side lines by myself, and that is never going to happen again. In fact, I think we've had this exact argument at least a good dozen times before, you know it always ends with me getting up and following you anyway."

"I know. Vaako?"

There was movement behind him, and Xander twisted to look at his friend, jaw dropping. Vaako didn't look terribly pleased, but he was standing there waiting with a massive pair of metal cuffs in his hands, expression slightly pinched.

"Oh hell no." He said, firmly, and spun to face Riddick again. "You wouldn't even think of it."

"Listen to me for once, bitch," he muttered, and wrapped his arm firmly around Xander's neck, tugging him into his chest and pinning him there. "And we won't have to face this."

"No. No. Not happening."

"Those I help die." He reminded him, as Vaako stepped closer with the cuffs.

"And you are not helping me into this situation," Xander growled, and shoved the other's arm away. It was true that Xander couldn't take Riddick. His mate was simply stronger than he was. But he also knew something, and that was as much as Riddick didn't pull punches when it came to him, Riddick also would always pull just short of killing him. So Xander shifted not to get away from Riddick, but to grab the knife off of his mate's waist, twisting so that it was pressed against his own lower belly.

"Vaako!" Riddick said sharply.

Their friend froze, hands about to reach out for Xander's hand, and halted. His eyes were wide, slightly alarmed, but he just waited for the other's cue that it was time to begin moving again.

"I will stop you, bitch," Riddick growled, lowly, his voice rumbling in his chest.

"I don't need to stop you forever, Riddick. Just for now." Xander said, honestly, and pressed the knife closer into his own belly, not even flinching when the razor sharp blade slipped through his skin and blood bubbled out around the tip of the blade, running down his stomach.

It was a gamble.

It was a dangerous gamble. But it was one that Xander had to try.

Riddick backed up.

He lifted his jaw, then, and met Riddick's eyes, firmly, and said, with a voice that brooked not a single argument, "I am going to speak to Aereon. You are going to stay here, and you are going to look after our children."

"Don't you - " He started, teeth bared in a snarl, but his mate drew up short when Xander growled.

He knew he was playing with fire. Every time he did this, his control over what it meant to be a Lavelle weakened slightly. He still didn't even understand this fucked up hereditary hold he had over every other member of his species, that they had to follow his orders because it was hardwired into their DNA to do so. But every time he had to do this with Riddick, and yeah, he tried to avoid doing it so often, because he didn't really like forcing someone to do what he wanted, anyway - his hold got a little weaker. Riddick got closer and closer to defying the programming that was somehow built into him so that he could just do whatever he wanted, Xander's orders or no. He didn't know if that was because Xander had tried this too often, really, or because Riddick was the Lord Marshall now, and they were supposed to be on equal footing.

He didn't really want to push it anymore than he had to, but he was not going to be left behind.

Riddick... Riddick was a smart man, and he could do things that other people couldn't even dream of. But he also wasn't terribly diplomatic.

Smart as a whip, oh absolutely, but he sort of had a temper to go with that brain.

Xander couldn't chance him declaring war on the elementals just because Aereon wouldn't answer his questions. Besides, he had his own questions for her, questions about what his father had told him, about why the hell exactly he was able to see his dead father in his dreams, in the first place.

"I need you," Xander said, standing on his toes to press his lips to Riddick's.

He'd never said that before.

Actually, he'd had to bite his tongue to not say that before, because he could never really just admit that he felt that way, because one step beyond needing someone was telling him that he loved them, and hell, it had been, what sixteen years? If he hadn't said it before, hadn't felt it before, he wasn't going to change that now.

"So please for once actually listen to me, and stay here."

Riddick just snarled slightly, but he didn't move.

Xander dropped the bloody blade to the floor, and took a deep breath, stepping back from his mate. Turning, he was a little surprised by what he saw.

Every other Furyan in the room was on one knee, bowing their heads towards him.

"...dammit, might have mojo'd a little too hard that time," he murmured, but then he broke into a run. He had to get to one of the shuttles, and he had to get off the ship and towards the planet before Riddick shook off the power of whatever effect it was that Xander had on him, and he had his pissed of mate stalking him down to punish him for what he'd done.

Riddick was really good at coming up with diabolical sorts of punishments, so yeah, he really didn't want him to catch up to him.

As he jogged through the halls, every soldier and guard and man and woman and even a few children that he passed all dropped to one knee, heads bowed, and he realized that yeah, maybe he had really over done it this time. Everything had better be back to normal when he came back, or this was going to get really annoying. It had been hard enough to convince people to stop bowing whenever he walked into the room back when he'd first come into his own as the Lavelle.

Darting into the hanger, he clambered into the first shuttle that was waiting, and let his fingers fly across the controls, inputting data and routes as quickly as he could manage once.

Once upon a time, on a hell planet a few dozen years back, Johns the merc had convinced everyone that even if Xander wasn't a threat, at least he couldn't pilot a shuttle, so it wasn't like he was a real flight risk. Frustrated that the merc was actually right, Xander had turned to his mate, later, and demanded to learn how to pilot. He'd been warned that it wasn't as easy as learning to fight or something, because it wasn't instinctual the way holding a knife was, but Xander had insisted, and Riddick had finally relented.

Xander was pretty sure that his mate probably regretted that decision, these days.

Taking a deep breath, he sighed in obvious relief when the shuttle separated itself from its moorings as it was supposed to, and pushed out into the openness of space. He'd been afraid that before he could get outside, before he could get the air locks properly, well, locked, that Riddick would manage to get there, and that he'd be busting his way in.

Looks like he'd gotten lucky.

He waited until he had cleared the ship enough to not risk damage to either their flagship, which was a massive black ship that sort of looked like a massive ravenous bird of prey, or to his little shuttle, before punching the controls. All right, he didn't "punch" the engine, because that would require the kind of airplane controls that jumbo jet liners would have had back on earth, and the control for the engine here was a little switch that just sort of looked like a normal switch. It was almost tragic, that something as powerful as a shuttle capable of space flight was just controlled by simple flips and switches and dials and buttons. The Necromonger technology was sort of cutting edge, in the way it worked, and even so, it wasn't controlled by giant touch control screens - sure there were touch controlled pads and all, but it wasn't no Star Trek - and there were no robots wandering around like in Star Trek to translate things and aim guns and such. He was just in a verse that was sort of a lot like Earth, if Earth had been a little less obsessed with things like what Tom Cruise's religion was, or what Angelina Jolie was wearing, and a little more concerned with taking to space.

Only it wasn't slick, this technology. He darted his fingers over a keyboard - yes, an honest to god keyboard - and wondered what sci fi writers would think if they could get their hands on real space technology like this. Maybe complain that it didn't look slick enough to be from the future.

Well, that would show them. Space technology wasn't from the future.

It was from the present - and he didn't just mean that because this was his present. He really hadn't moved through time, when he'd ended up here. He'd just moved through space. Space technology wasn't just the fevered dream of science fiction writers, it was really a thing.

He should know - he was a kid from California, and he was hurtling towards a planet that had dozens of small suns orbiting around its middle.

Reaching over, he flicked one of the switches, and cleared his throat, before calling, softly, "This is shuttle one-oh-oh-three of the Furyan fleet, calling the Elemental home world. Come in."

There was a moment of static coming through the speaker, then he repeated his message.

He repeated it again, when it still got no response, and just as he was thinking that he was going to have to chance a landing on the planet with absolutely no idea where he was going, after all, a tinny, almost canned sounding voice came over the speakers. "What are you doing, Lavelle Alexander?"

He grinned, and called over, "Aereon! Fancy hearing from you! What are you doing on the communications grid? I figured they'd have more important jobs for you than answering messages."

"What are you doing, Lavelle Alexander?" She asked again, and he could fairly hear the frown in her voice, but at that moment, he didn't really care. His attention was more on getting down to the planet's surface, to talk to her. "You've arrived with your entire fleet, and I rather thought we'd been fairly on our peace treaty that this kind of aggression would not be appreciated."

"It's not aggression, Aereon!" He called, laughing. "Tell me where to land, and how."

"It's not recommended," she said, finally.

"Do I sound like I care what's recommended?" He smirked, tapping his fingers on the edge of the speaker. "I'm a Furyan, Aereon, you know we do stupid shit like this all the time. So! Are you going to tell me where to land, or am I just going to give this my best shot, and see what happens?"

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line again, just the crackle of the speakers, then she said, "We've heard from The Riddick, Lavelle Alexander."

He groaned softly, shaking his head. Leave it to Riddick to full on go behind his back and talk to Aereon before he got there.

"So?"

"So it has been recommended that if we wish to keep peace with your nation, then your Lord Marshall has recommended that we turn you away and instruct you to return to your vessel."

Xander grinned, though it wasn't really a grin of humour, so much as it was a grin of serious amusement and frustration. Riddick sort of had a talent for making things very difficult for him. "I don't really care what Riddick said, Aereon, he may be Lord Marshall, but I'm the Lavelle. So tell me where to land my fucking ship before I decide to void the peace treaty myself."

"I rather imagined that would be your response." She answered. "As I told him."

"And? What'd he say to that?" He grinned.

"That you had better leave before he got here."

He swore, in several different demon languages, frustrated. That wasn't exactly what he'd been expecting - it probably should have been what he was expecting, but it still wasn't good. Reaching over, he flicked one of the engine control switches, and the engine under his feet thrummed even louder as it started going even faster. "Then you'd better tell me where to land, Aereon, and you'd better do it now, before I bring the domestic dispute to end all domestic disputes down on your head."

"Of course," she sighed, but this time, he could just imagine her little smirk as she said that.

A map pulled up on his screen, some kind of grid map that somehow managed to overlay the planet that he was rapidly approaching. As it did, there were plot points and landmarks marked out on the map, and he grinned, despite himself. A handy thing, this was. There was a lot of writing on the map, but when he leaned forward and flicked the screen, ordering, "Landing stations," most of it disappeared, until there were now only a few places marked. One of them was flashing, dully, a slowly pulsating marker.

"Land quickly," Aereon advised, through his speaker. "I don't imagine that your mate is terribly happy about what you are doing."

"I just need a few minutes to talk to you, Aereon." he promised.

  
 

——

  
 

The planet was as strange under the cloud cover as it looked from the other side.

The particular landing point that Xander had landed on was near to the edge of where the planet was rent almost in half by the fires and the lava, and in the distance, on the horizon, he could see the fires burning eternally. However, as too bright as it would have been around the equator, here it was pleasantly shaded, and he was able to walk out of his little shuttle and into the massive, sprawling compound that sat in front o him without his goggles over his eyes.

He said compound, rather than building, because really it was more about what wasn't there than what was, in its construction. Everywhere, the massive structure seemed to have whole gaps that were missing, though he imagined it had been designed that way, so they weren't precisely missing.

Half of the building was made of glass, massive stained glass windows that opened out in every direction, so what little sunlight there was was all pulled in, painting portraits in light.

It was sort of beautiful, but also sort of alarming. He couldn't say he'd liked the Necromongers, but the ships that they had built, the ones he and Riddick commandeered, now, were massive and heavy and almost made all of stone and dark marble. He loved that look, that was sort of exactly what he was used to, and it was exactly what he liked. It made him feel comfortable, in a fucked up sort of way.

This world here, this didn't make him feel comfortable at all.

A young man approached him first. He looked human, he really did, but his hair was dripping droplets of water as he walked towards him, and the light blue tunic thing he wore was clinging wetly to his skin. The boy looked up at him, seriously, and offered him a large, low bow, which was also full of water.

"What do I do with this?" He frowned, glancing at it. There were little floaty things in it, and he wasn't really in the mood for drinking tea. Ever since Johns had poured dose in his cup, that one time, he was suspicious of anything that someone brought him to drink.

"Traditionally," a new voice said, and he looked up in relief. "A person washes in it."

Aereon looked pretty much exactly like he remembered her, like someone's grandmother, but with a strange ability to walk with her feet never quite touching the ground, and any little breeze that flitted through the door after him made parts of her seem to disappear, wherever it hit the hardest. He'd have probably been completely freaked out, if he wasn't also completely expecting it.

He smirked slightly at her, then at the bowl. "And what good what that do?"

"That would cleanse you of all the outside evil," she murmured, dipping her old hands in the water, then said, "Give me your hands."

Rolling his eye, slightly, he stuck his hands into the water as well, and watched as she cupped her old hands and poured water over his, quietly. "So what does it do?"

"It's symbolic, Xander. Of the fact that I welcome you, instead of sending you right out into the flames." She said, quietly, smiling faintly, then finally slid her fingers out of the bowl, letting her hands drip quietly at her side. "Come. We must hurry, and talk before your mate comes looking for you."

"You can't distract him?" he asked, flicking water off of his fingers as he followed her down the hall.

"Can you distract the Riddick, Lavelle Alexander?" She asked, bluntly.

"Sure," he nodded. "But I usually have to get naked, first."

She laughed, softly, and Xander grinned at her back, jogging up a little faster so that he could walk beside her, properly. "So Riddick has been talking to you, has he? What's he been saying? Because he won't tell me exactly why he wants to come here to talk to you."

"It may have something to do with his dreams," she said, casually.

"His - you haven't." He groaned.

"When I have a message I need to send, Xander, I have it sent."

"Yeah, but Riddick hates when people muddle in his head and his dreams, you know that," he groaned softly. "He really hates it. It bothers the hell out of him."

"There are sometimes sacrifices that have to be made," she said, calmly.

"Yeah, but I'm the one who has to put up with his pissy attitude, afterwards." He rolled his eyes. "Did you know that he tried to have me handcuffed and all so that I couldn't come here? What is it that he's trying to find out but keep me from learning, Aereon?"

"Your mind has been locked to me," she said, at last. "Do you know this?"

He frowned, confused. "What do you mean?"

"I have not been able to enter your dreams, as I once did," she explained, folding her hands in front of her. A breeze ruffled in through an open section of the wall, and Aereon nearly appeared to disappear for a moment as the wind flickered through her, ruffling out her white dress. "You have remained locked to me, as though I cannot enter."

"Since when?" He frowned, confused.

"Since you were marked with this." She turned to face him, tapping his chest, lightly.

He didn't have to see it to know that she was referring to the blue glowing hand print on his chest. The Mark of the Furyans, that which denoted him as one of the Furyan nation. "That's not true," he frowned. "You came to speak to me in my dreams after Jesse was born. So it's not possible that you have been blocked out, Aereon."

"That was a lucky moment," she said, quietly, shaking her head. "I can only assume that it was because you were under the effect of the pain from the birth. Otherwise, I doubt your shields would have ever been loose enough to let me in."

His brows furrowed over his eye and his patch. "Wait, that doesn't make sense. I haven't been blocking you out."

"I can assure you, Lavelle Alexander, that you have been." She said, quietly and opened a large door, leading him into one of the rooms that had walls made of those stained glass massive windows he had noticed before. The whole room seemed to lit up, and there was light everywhere. There was, however, a large door in the stained glass wall opposite them, and it was hanging open, letting a warm breeze that smelled vaguely of sulpher and ash drift into the room, ruffling Aereon's dress and hair. "You have been blocking me out of your mind quite expertly, actually. I'm not sure what else to tell you, but you are very talented at keeping me out."

He cleared his throat, and shrugged. "Sorry."

"Mmm. So I was forced to give the information that I needed to transfer to you through your mate's dreams." She said, settling on the edge of a little settee, and motioned forward for him to sit in one of the other seats around the room. He settled finally onto a low stool, watching her. "And I will admit that The Riddick seems to misunderstand some of the things I attempt to tell him."

"Because he hates you." He reminded her.

"Yes, I have become aware of this," she nodded. "I will admit that it is partially my fault. After all, my own flesh and blood has been what has made his life so difficult, in part."

He frowned, not sure he understood.

"My son has wrecked havoc for the both of you, as it was my son that slaughtered your people." Aereon said, her now dry hands folded in her lap, as she watched him with a strange, Mona Lisa smile again.

"Your son... oh my god." He blinked at her. "...your son became Lord Fucking Marshall?"

"It is true," she nodded, quietly.

"...how does an elemental become king of the Necromongers?" He gaped at her.

"You keep what you kill, Lavelle Alexander," she said softly. "And he was never wholly an elemental. His father was Furyan."

He blinked at her for another long moment, then slumped back in the little chair that he had chosen, glad that there was a wall behind him, that prevented him from just toppling backwards and making a fool of himself. Honestly, he could have done it very easily. "...that is insane."

"Is it such an insane thought that a Furyan might chose to mate with someone who was not Furyan?" She asked, arching a brow.

"Oh, no, that's not what I meant," he cleared his throat, flushed. "I just mean... it's just sort of insane that he had you all locked up and everything when you were his mother. Did he not know...?"

"Of course he knew," she scoffed. "I raised him here. He just knew, as a result, that us elementals can see the future, can calculate the odds of the future happening. He did not inherit that skill, though. He inherited my speed, my power, my ability to nearly walk on the winds... I cannot fly, but I can float, to an extent, and my son was able to do the same. He used it to his advantage - it was how he become Lord Marshall, it was partially how he was able to garner such power. Because he was able to do things that no other Lord Marshall had been able to do before... he convinced the masses it was because when he pilgrimaged to the Underverse, he had somehow become half dead."

"So that's why he could move that fast," he breathed, surprised. "Because he was actually like you."

"He was his mother's son," she murmured, nodding.

"...is that what you've been trying to tell me?" He asked, a little suspiciously, frowning slightly.

"No," she shook her head, clearing her throat. "That is not it. That simply happens to be the truth."

Xander grinned, wolfishly, and said, sarcastically, "Aereon, telling me the truth? I can't even believe it. You don't exactly have a reputation for telling the truth, Aereon."

"So you have said, before," she lifted her chin. "But you will also find that you have been willing to take my word for truth when it suited you."

"I don't think that was so much that your advice 'suited me' so much as I was a confused little kid that thought a ghost had just shown up in his dreams," he rolled his eyes. "I had this pretty little world in my dreams, and then suddenly there's a woman that floats when she walks showing up in my dreams, and I thought that either I had gone insane, or that you were actually something in my dreams. I didn't know that you were real, much less that you were a person on a different planet that wanted to get into my head."

"So you understand now why I am blocked out of your mind?" She murmured. "You don't trust me."

"It's hard to trust people that show up in my head." He tapped his own temple. "Call it a quirk of being Furyan."

She smirked, enigmatically. "You blame a lot of things on being Furyan, Lavelle Alexander. How much can you actually blame on that before you finally have to find yourself a new excuse?"

"I don't know," he smirked slightly. "But I'm sure I can come up with something. So. What is the message that you have been trying to deliver."

"Time is running short."

He felt cold inside, suddenly. It was a strange sensation, like his blood had been replaced with ice water.

It was the same message that his dead father had been trying to deliver in his dreams, earlier.

He swallowed, thickly, and lifted his jaw. "What are you referring to, Aereon?"

The woman shifted forward on her seat, and whispered, "Lavelle Alexander, the time is coming that there will be no more opportunities, no more - "

"Lady Aereon!"

The woman started back in her seat, eyes wide, and looked up at the messenger as they dashed into the room. It was a young woman, though her hair was as white as Aereon's was, and when the breeze coming in through the windows caught her, she went translucent, then almost transparent for a moment, as well.

"Why are you interrupting me, child?" Aereon snapped, rising to her feet. "This is a private meeting - "

The girl interrupted her, not waiting for permission. Better to beg forgiveness, then to ask permission. "There is something happening. A battle."

"Battle?" The woman repeated, shocked.

There was a creeping feeling of dread slipping into Xander's veins. It was almost an instinctual thing, a thought that something was terribly wrong, and though he didn't know what exactly was wrong, he could guess as to what it involved. His heart rate had begun to speed up, steadily, since just before the girl had called for the elemental, and he knew that it wasn't because of anything he had done.

Riddick's heard was beating faster, which meant that his was, in term. It was the double edged sword, of being mated.

He didn't wait to hear the rest of the girl's explanation, he just pushed past her, ignoring her cry of surprise, and burst into a run.

He had seen the control room, when he had entered the building, and it was that he entered now, not caring that a host of elementals were looking at him in alarm, some of them backing away from their controls as they tried to get away from him. He supposed he might look a bit intimidating - he'd been told that it was a combination of the eyes and the clothing, though he supposed at that moment, that the glowing hand print on his chest, which was becoming steadily brighter, was also something that would cause panic in someone that didn't know what it was.

Pushing his way past a few of the controllers, he pulled up the display screen that they had been huddled around, and drew in a sharp breath.

There was a dog fight going on in the stars.

Just outside the planet's atmosphere, just before the ships would breach that pollution thick ozone layer and enter the space of the planet, there were two ships, firing wildly at each other, darting in and out and around like two crows that were fighting over the same scrap of food, both darting in then away, like they were trying to beat each other to the morsel. He wasn't sure what the morsel was, but if he knew his verse, he was pretty sure that it was him.

"Lavelle Alexander!" Aereon called, standing in the doorway, looking startled.

"I'm taking to the skies," he said, without waiting for whatever piece of information it was she was about to give him. If it was important enough, it would wait until after he had saved his mate from the merc ship.

Fuck.

He should have let Vaako shoot that fucking thing out of the sky when he'd tried to.

Too late to regret that, now. There would be time.

"Lavelle Alexander!" She protested, as she followed him, hurrying as he strode quickly towards his shuttle. "You are safer if you stay here."

"And my husband is in the skies, Aereon," he said, slapping the release button, the one that made the gangplank lower, and he darted up it the moment it was open enough for him to get inside. He didn't really have the patience for this.

"Wait!" Someone cried, and he looked up, startled.

A young man - the same young man from before, with the bowl of water, was hurrying forward, only this time he was holding a pad in his gloved hands - had he been wearing those before? - and it was Xander that he thrust it towards, not to Aereon. Frowning, he looked down at it, then sucked in a sharp breath when he realized what he was looking at.

The merc ship had gotten a good hit in.

The Furyan shuttle was burning through the atmosphere as it hurtled down towards the earth, but it wasn't flying straight, it was limping into the planet's atmosphere, really, careening through one of the areas of the world where there were no clouds. It was hurtling towards the flames and the fires of the centre band of the planet.

He hissed, and looked up, sharply. "Is there a way to travel to the fire regions?"

Aereon hesitated.

"Aereon," he said, fiercely, teeth bared. The blue hand print wasn't just glowing properly anymore, there were blue tendrils of light starting to wrap around his shoulders, down his arms. This had only happened a few times before, and it was usually when his family was in danger.

"Yes," she nodded, taking a deep breath. "But it's not an easy thing to do."

"Do I look like I care about _easy_?" He snarled.

"Get one of the skiffs," she said, finally, looking at the boy. "And hurry."

Xander didn't think her. That was the last thing on his mind. The first thing he was worried about was the furious pounding of his heart in his chest, and the sick feeling that had settled in his gut. He was terrified. His mate was out there, his mate was clearly in danger, his mate may even be about to crash into the lava. He might die.

Sure, there were those that said that of course he would still have his children to live for.

But that wasn't what Xander was thinking.

He was thinking that if his mate was dead, there was a very good chance that he might throw himself into the flaming wreckage after him.

Had he known more of the Furyan cultural history, perhaps, he would have known that this was not uncommon - some Furyans were very much like Vikings, or old world Indian funerals, in that often the wife - or the Prime, really - would throw themselves on the fire after their Alpha's death. The phenomenon wasn't nearly as common as the reverse, however, where Alphas would often throw themselves into the funerary fires of their Primes. It was a little bit of a twist on what most people expected. So many species outside of the Furyans looked at them and assumed that the Alphas were the strong ones of their mate pairs, and that the Primes were the weak, submissive ones. However, as Furyans delighted in proving to the verse time and time again, neither of the two was submissive or weak - and often it was the Alphas that depended on their "submissive" halves. Funny the way the world worked, sometimes.

The skiff that Aereon had mentioned looked a lot like a boat, but instead of a sail, really, it was a giant metal and glass contraption that stood up on the mast that rose from the centre of the boat. It was a sort of an intimidating looking art object, if such a thing was possible, but Xander just grabbed the edge of the rail the moment it pulled close enough for him to do so, and hauled himself on board.

Aereon, and the young man that had alerted her to the impending crash joined him, and moments later, the skiff was racing over the ground.

It moved much faster than a boat, and probably faster than even Xander's shuttle could have moved, while in the confines of the atmosphere. It skimmed over the ground, and left no mark of their passing in its wake. It just skimmed along, rapidly, racing towards the fiery half of the planet.

As they neared it, both the light level and the heat rose. Xander had long ago put his goggles on to combat the wind that was whipping past them, but if he hadn't he would have had to put them on anyway, to prevent his sole remaining eye from being burned out of his head. Even Aereon and the others were covering their eyes with their hands, and with his light sensitive eyes, he would have truly been in pain.

They screamed across the ground, but as they did, Xander abruptly let out a cry, arm pointing up into the sky.

At first, it looked like a comet.

It was screaming down towards the earth, a flare of fire and fury, looking entirely like a satellite thrown out of the heavens by a furious flaming star, but when they neared where it was heading, it got larger and larger, and they were able to make out the remains of the wings and the shape of the shuttle itself. It was turning end over end in the sky as it fell, gaining speed until there simply was no speed left to gain, and hurtled down towards the ground - because there was still ground here, between the bubbling pools of lava and the fires that were licking at the edges of the dry sections of the planet - with a speed that made Xander think that there was no way they were going to get there before it crashed.

They were right.

It landed against the ground the way a shuttle might land in the ocean, and just as in the ocean, there was a splash down, only it wasn't water that sprayed into the sky to catch the sunlight, it was droplets of lava that flew like glittering embers into the sky, catching every point of light.

Xander cried out, horrified. He didn't want to show weakness.

But that was his mate, inside that flimsy creation of metal and glass.

The skiff broke free of the ground, and began racing across the burning fields. It actually went faster here, almost screaming faster as though it knew the importance of getting to that shuttle.

When they neared it, there was a moment that Xander choked down bile. It didn't look good. It was a mangled mess, half melted and twisted, and it didn't even really look like a shuttle anymore, it looked like... it looked like something that belonged in a horror movie, something that didn't make proper sense. The capsule top was broken, glass shards lying on the ground, though several of them were already starting to melt, becoming puddles of silicate.

Xander moved to the front of the skiff, and though Aereon cried out to him to stop, he leapt off the front of the skiff, to land on the roof of the shuttle - or at least what little of it was left. It was melting under his feet, and the soles of his leather boots were sticking to the metal.

It was hot. He could feel sweat dripping down his back, and every loose tendril of his hair was sticking to his forehead, his jaw, his neck. It was bad, this whole thing, and there was already soot sticking to his skin.

It was like the slam that he and Riddick had escaped together - barely. But this time, his mate wasn't there to offer him his hand.

So he dashed to that broken visor, and dropped inside the shuttle, howling, "Riddick!?!"

Xander's voice was horse, and he wasn't sure if that was because of the emotion, or the heat, or the chemicals that were wafting in the air around him. The interior of the shuttle seemed to be filling up with these heavy chemicals and toxins, but he wasn't leaving until he had his lover with him. No matter what.

There was a man laying in the front captain's chair, and Xander choked back a sob as he darted forward, pushing his head back.

But it wasn't Riddick's bloodied face that rolled back onto the man's shoulders.

Xander gaped at the man in front of him, stunned. It wasn't Riddick. It wasn't Vaako, either, it was a man wearing the old Necromonger cum Furyan armour, it was, but he wasn't sure he had ever seen the face that was looking at him. It was a stranger.

Stunned, he dropped the dead man's shoulder, and darted forward, searching through the tiny shuttle. "Riddick?! Riddick?! Are you here?!"

"Lavelle Alexander!" A voice called from outside, and he shifted to the visor to look up and out.

The boy was leaning over the railing, trying to get as close to him as he could, calling, "There are dozens of Furyan ships in the atmosphere now! Are you declaring war?!"

"No!" He called back, and clambered out of the visor, confused. "...there are dozens?"

"Dozens," Aereon confirmed, nodding. "Come!"

"But Riddick..."

His heart was still pounding too fast, like it was trying to beat its way out of his ribcage, like it was making a desperate bid for freedom. If Riddick hadn't been in this ship, why was he panicking so much? "I don't understand."

"There's another ship with them," Aereon called. "A merc vessel, my men tell me."

He paled, and clambered out properly onto the actual hull of the vessel. "I need to get back aboard!"

There was some shouting on board the skiff, but Xander didn't actually catch most of it - the bitterly chemically, hot winds were whipping the words away and throwing them out into the distance. Still, the skiff moved closer, close enough that he was able to seize the railing as he had done before, and haul himself up onto it.

The skiff took a wide round turn, around the downed shuttle, which was really beginning to melt, now, slowly sinking down into the lava, like a man might melt into quicksand.

By the time they were racing back towards the compound, it had disappeared beneath the surface of the smoke and the flames.

There were now dozens of ships streaking in towards the sprawling compound, dozens of flares of fires in the cloudy skies. Xander's heart was still pounding desperately hard, so he had to hope to all hell that it was because Riddick was in one of those ships, but as they approached, he realized that there was one ship standing on the field beside where he had landed with his own - and it was distinctly not the same as the Furyan ships that were moving through the air. None of the other ships had landed, yet, just this one, and Xander could feel his heart speed up a little more - this time on his account, and not on Riddick's, though he didn't know how exactly his heart pounding so loud in his ears that he couldn't even hear what Aereon was saying to him could possibly help.

Still, he reached down to his belt, digging out the pair of knives that he always kept on himself, and squeezed their handles, very tightly, breathing faster through his grit teeth.

He was going to slaughter the merc.

If that's what it took, he was going to slaughter them.

They'd killed one of his men, and while Xander didn't exactly take personal care about each and every one of his soldiers - honestly, he didn't know ninety percent of his own men - he had thought that it was Riddick. The merc was going to have to pay for fooling him into thinking that he was dead. That was a cruel thing that he could not let go unpunished.

The skiff skidded up beside the ships, and a few of the elementals rushed out - though Xander realized, sort of on the edge of his thoughts, that they were only water and air elementals, there didn't seem to be any fire or earth ones, but right now he had much bigger things on his mind than what type of elementals populated this planet - and they waved their arms, trying to wave them down. "There were people on the shuttle!" One of the water elementals called, trying to wave them closer. "They went inside, we couldn't stop them!"

Xander didn't need to hear anymore.

Knives still in hand, he grabbed a hold of the edge of the railing, and threw himself over the edge of the railing, landing on the dusty ground in a crouch.

"Lavelle Alexander!" Aereon howled, trying to motion to some of her men to lower the skiff so that she could get off.

He didn't wait for her.

He was really beyond the point of actually talking or really thinking rationally, anyway.

Once, when Xander had been back on Earth, Buffy had nearly been killed. He'd saved her, but that wasn't the point. She'd been nearly killed, and she spent the whole summer in LA being wild and crazy, and when she had come back to Sunnydale, she'd been different. Reckless, uncaring, sort of cold. He remembered trying very hard to get her to come out of that daze, whatever it was, but she'd been cruel while in it, acting like that, taunting him and teasing him and being, well... not a very nice person. But when he and his friends had been captured and nearly sacrificed to raise the Master back to unlife, she had gotten her focus even more focused, to an almost alarming intensity, and he could remember the look on her face as she had ground the Master's bones to literally a bone paste. It had been a horrified, furious, almost mad look, fierce enough that Willow had actually murmured, at one point, that she thought that their friend had lost her mind. And yeah, maybe she had become a little unhinged, but when he spoke to her later, she had explained it as "I had become so focused, that killing him had become my only reason to be alive, to be existing. And I had to destroy him so completely that there was no way that I would ever have to feel like this again."

That was how Xander felt right now.

That merc maybe hadn't ever touched his mate, he didn't know. But at this moment, all he could focus on was that he'd thought he had been killed by this person, and that his heart still hadn't slowed down a notch, yet. He was still shaking, and his heart was starting to honestly hurt.

And the blue tendrils of light were curling up around his neck and his jaw again, like grabby, greedy fingers.

The Wrath of the Furyans was begging to be allowed to lay retribution again.

And Xander wanted nothing more than to allow that Wrath to go.

He paused only long enough to shove his goggles up on his forehead, so that he could see everything better. Things looked different, when he looked at them properly, versus how they looked with the goggles on. They sort of obscured his vision, casting a dark patina over the whole world. With his goggles off, the world was bright and vibrant and it almost hurt to look at, sometimes. But it was beautiful and perfect, and he could see the faint, already fading heat traces that the mercs had left behind when they had entered the building.

Baring his teeth in a sort of viscous and predatory smile, Xander headed forward, following the footsteps.

He headed deeper into the compounding, passing other places with other footsteps, but the elementals left bare light blue brushes of cooler spots, not warm foot steps like the ones he was following.

"Xander!" Someone shouted behind him, and he spun.

That was when the woman stepped out of the shadows, pressing a knife to his throat.

He sucked in a sharp breath, and swung with his blades, but though his aim was true, they clanged off of metal body armour of some kind, and there was a growl behind him. Despite the metal armour that she was wearing, he could tell it was a woman, because the hand that was curled against his throat was that of a woman, and the growl in his ear was that of a woman, as well, as she hissed, "Long time no see, old friend."

He had no idea who she was. But that wasn't going to stop him.

Xander shifted, and ignored the fact that doing so pressed the blade into his throat. He didn't really care in the slightest, because he was going to have to kill her anyway, and a little bit of blood-lust was a good thing.

But he wasn't moving so that he could get away from here, he was moving so that he could slap his hand against his own chest, and a blue light erupted inside his eyes.

It was like he had just set off a sonic bomb.

Windows blew out around the compound, blasted outward as glass flew across the plains, and control panels and display screens fractured and in some cases completely erupted in flames. A blue light blasted out through the whole building, and in some places weaker walls collapsed under the pressure. Xander himself arched like he had the bomb in his chest - which he did, really, the whole Wrath of the Furyans was gathered up in his chest, and it flared out from him in wave after wave of beautiful but terrifying blue light - until he finally sank to the floor, boneless.

The woman had been thrown away from him, and she groaned, softly as she straightened up, her long, dread-locked hair hanging in her face.

There was the sound of movement, and around the corner, several dozen Furyan soldiers burst, surprised to find their Lavelle lying motionless on the floor, his calves folded up under his thighs as though he had literally just toppled here he had stood, his one eye open, but his eye rolled back up into his head.

The mercenary woman was gone.

Vaako pushed through the ranks of the men, and swore, colourfully, in Furyan. It was a language that even most of the soldiers themselves couldn't quite wrap their tongues around, anymore, but it was definitely a language that they were all fluent in cursing in. He cupped the Lavelle's jaw, and murmured, "Lavelle Xander, wake up."

The younger man jerked, suddenly, eye snapping open. He blinked, seeming to be unable to see for a few long moments, then slowly let out a long breath. "...what in the bloody Underverse was that?"

"You released the Wrath again." Vaako smirked, shifting so that his Lavelle's head was resting in his lap. "Apparently it worked, though I don't know why you did it."

"There was a merc." He cleared his throat, and bolted up, abruptly. "Where is she?"

"I don't know," he shook his head. "There's no one here."

"Son of a bitch... men!" He barked, taking a deep breath, then standing up, refusing to show weakness in front of the soldiers in front of him - which weren’t all men, there were women in the ranks as well. Something the Necromongers had never really taken advantage of was the fierceness of the Furyan women - they were almost more terrifying in battle then the men of their race, really. "Fan out. Find the merc - a woman in metal armour."

They nodded, not bothering to take the time to salute, and scattered. Xander had actually liked that about the Furyan army - they were smart enough to not waste time.

There was movement in the doorway, then a snarling voice said, "I am going to kill you."

Xander just bolted forward, and threw his arms around the invader. "I thought you were dead."

"I'm not," Riddick growled, crushing his mate against his chest, fiercely, burying his face in the other's neck, sniffing at the smell of the other's neck and jaw, as though trying to reassure himself that the man in his arms was still alive. He was crushing him tightly enough that he would have caused injury, were it anyone other than Xander. "If you fucking ever do that again..."

"I know. Killer of Men is coming to kill me." He murmured, squeezing his eye tightly shut as he clung at his lover.

Vaako stood, quietly, watching them both. It was impolite to intrude on a private moment like this, perhaps, but they weren't in private, they were in the middle of a corridor, with everyone in the place there, that they could see them. But that wasn't the point. The point that was that both of his leaders were safe, alive, and that was really all that mattered.

"What in the Underverse happened?" Xander said, finally, leaning back slightly. "I thought you were killed, your heart beat just sped right up."

"We were unaware that there was a patrol shuttle out on... well, patrol." Vaako answered the question, clearing his throat slightly. Both men turned to face him, considering him seriously. "We had missed your own shuttle on our sweep, and thought that the patrol vessel was yours. When the merc attacked it...."

Xander took a deep breath. "You thought I'd been killed."

Riddick nodded, jaw grit, tightly.

He groaned softly, and ran his hand through his hair. "Aereon had just finished telling me that you'd sent a message saying that I better get out of there before you arrived and... I dunno, took your revenge on me for ordering you to stay behind, and the next thing I know, there's a merc blasting down a Furyan ship. I thought it was you. Fuck, we actually took a skiff out there and went to investigate, but it was just a soldier in there. It wasn't you."

"I don't get shot down," Riddick growled, almost seeming to take offense that Xander thought he could have been shot out of the sky.

He rolled his eyes, and straightened up to kiss his mate again, firmly, a fast and hard press of lips to lips. "Just let me be happy that you're alive, all right. You absolutely terrified me. I really thought I'd lost you."

Riddick's hand very tight on his waist, gripping his hip tightly enough to bruise was all the reassureament that Xander needed that his lover had feared the exact same thing.

Vaako cleared his throat, then stepped up to meet with one of the commanders when the woman rushed into the room again, speaking with her quietly.

Xander took a deep breath, and leaned quietly on Riddick. He didn't care, in that moment, if someone did think that he was weak, or that this was unbecoming of a Lavelle, or whatever they might think. His heart was only just beginning to slow down, now, and he was starting to feel a little like his insides were clawing at his outsides, not because he was relieved, no, but because he sort of wanted to throw up. He'd blame that on all the excitement.

"They haven't found anything," Vaako said, stepping forward again. His brows were furrowed over his dark eyes, and he looked confused. "I don't understand where she might have gone."

"She may have had allies."

They all turned as Aereon all but floated up to them, looking... sad. Upset. It was not a look they saw on her face on a regular basis - she normally looked so calm and sort of mischievous, like she knew that she could turn any situation around, and make it work to her advantage. But at that moment, she looked like she wasn't sure that she was ever going to get the advantage on her side again. "I'm sorry, that you were unable to find her."

"What allies are you talking about?" Xander frowned.

She sighed softly. "Not all of our kind are so pleased that we have made peace with the Furyans," she said, then motioned towards the sitting room that was just off of the corridor they were standing in. There were no windows left, but she suggested that perhaps they might be more comfortable there. None of them moved. Shaking her head lightly, Aereon simply continued her story there, in the hall. "In our past, the Furyans have been somewhat of a bane of our existence. You wage wars, some would say, where no war needs to be waged. Many of the elementals considered it a blessing when the Necromongers wiped out the Furyan race."

Riddick snarled, teeth bared at the woman.

She didn’t looked fazed in the slightest. "Of course, I was not one of them. I truly believed that this was a travesty, that there would be need for the Furyans in the future. I had seen what the future would be like without them, and I had calculated the odds of our verse continuing properly... without someone to keep the Underverse in check. They were not good."

"Wait." Xander held up his hands, confused. "To hold the Underverse in check?"

Aereon looked up at that, and nodded, seriously, her lips pressed into a tight line, frowning slightly. "Yes. We were unaware of the extent of the problem at first, but the stronger the Necromongers grew, the more we realized that it was necessary. The Underverse... the Underverse is not just a place."

"Obviously." Xander rolled his eyes. "It's a whole 'nother universe."

"No," she shook her head. "It is a prison."

Vaako let out a long breath. "A prison for the dead."

Xander blinked at them both, then looked up at Riddick, wondering if the other man had any more idea than he did of what was going on. His mate's expression indicated that, no, he really didn't. "Why the hell would you need a prison for the dead?"

"So that they do not come out," she said, as though explaining something to a toddler. "Imagine the devastation that could be caused if the Underverse was not kept in check, and the dead began to walk among the living again."

He paled.

"...I don't have to imagine it."

"What do you mean?" Vaako frowned, not quite sure he understood.

"Home... back home, where I was raised..." Xander took a deep breath, trying to think of how to explain this to the people around him, who likely wouldn’t understand. "I come from a little town that is called Sunnydale, and Sunnydale sits on what's called a hellmouth. A mouth to hell."

"What is hell?" Vaako asked, frowning. "Is that what the Christ-ers talk about?"

"Its something like that," he agreed, drawing himself up to his full height, feeling better about this if he felt less like the idiot teenager just trying to explain an insane thing and more like a man in control of his life and his nation. It was a lie, because he had never felt more out of control than he did in that moment, but at least it was a worthwhile charade. Taking a deep breath, he continued, "It is like the Underverse, in that it is where the dead go, but in this case, it's where the dead go to be punished for the things they did in their lives. And sometimes these dead people... they get twisted by the things that happen to them while they are there and they become things like demons and vampires."

"I don't know what either of those things are," Aereon frowned, seriously.

"They're monsters." He said, crossing his arms over his chest. "Monsters that used to be human, and have become creatures of ultimate destruction and terror. Monsters that exist to eat and feed on humans and human misery, and exist mostly for the purpose of destruction and chaos." Xander took a deep breath. "I lived there for most of my early life, and my best friend there was a woman whose purpose in life was to kill those things. To make the world safe for people to live there."

Riddick's hand was still gripping Xander's hip tightly, though he had started to massage at the skin just above his hip, gently, and that was starting to make him feel better.

"That sounds much like what the Underverse is," she said, finally, nodding. "And that is why the Furyans were such an essential race. Because they were the jail-keepers of the Underverse."

"So what, we just patrolled the Underverse and made sure that it didn't overgrow, or something?"

Aereon glowered at him slightly, like he was an idiot child who kept suggesting ridiculous things. "No. You were there because you were the only race capable of keeping them in there, and keeping them from bursting out into the verse. And if they ever did escape their bonds, it was the Furyans who would put them back in their place. Or kill them, whichever was more appropriate. Everywhere that the barrier between the Underverse and the Verse were weak, there were Furyan outposts, just to be sure."

"...places like maybe a hellmouth on Earth?" Xander asked, slowly.

"It is possible," she agreed. "Though I do not have a list anywhere, or any records of where any such outpost might exist. It has been said that the only storehouse of such knowledge is held by the Lavelle of the Furyans, so perhaps, somewhere, there is a list of such places. But yes, based on your description, I would think that this "hellmouth" of yours could very well be one of these outposts. I would not be surprised if these 'slayers' of yours were not decedents of Furyans sent there to guard."

Riddick smirked softly, and Xander, rolled his eye. Trust his lover to be the one who had been right about that, in the first place.

"So what does that have to do with the Pilgrimage?" He frowned.

"There is an entrance to the Underverse, Lavelle Alexander," she said, patiently. "It is how the dead enter the Underverse. The Necromongers preached that the Underverse was a paradise for them, that they would rule like kings there. And just as in the land of the blind the one eyed man is king - "

"Hey," Xander said, flushed. "Hitting a little close to home, there."

"I apologize." She bowed her head, quietly. "But in such a way, so the living would rule in the land of the dead. And that, we believe, is why the Lord Marshall sought to bring his people there. But in either case, at least once in every reign of the Necromongers, and the Furyans before them, the leaders would need to take a pilgrimage to the Underverse, because it was there that they would be able to reinforce the gates. The current leader of those people that protected the gateways out of that world would need to imbue the doors with their own power, or else it would begin to decay."

Xander frowned, and murmured, "So because we haven't taken this pilgrimage..."

"Yes," she nodded. "The gates are beginning to fall."

"...which means the dead will be roaming the verse," Vaako said slowly.

"Yes," She nodded again. "The weakest will be the first ones that slip through, because they were small and have little to catch them when they try to squeeze out of the crevasses. So there will be spirits first, then after that the powerful spirits, then monsters such as your demons and vampires, and eventually, the truly terrifying things. The dead that have become so twisted that they are no longer anything like the things they began as."

He swallowed, and suggested. "Like maybe something that would turn a man into a thing that would suck blood?"

"That would be only the beginning," she nodded.

"What about a thing that could create little eggs... and inside those eggs there were brain sucking things that could control the minds of people they would latch onto?" Xander asked, clearing his throat.

"That would be... rather more alarming." She agreed, frowning slightly. "Have you heard of such a thing?"

"I helped to kill one, actually." he swallowed, and looked up at Vaako and Riddick. "...I really think we need to go pilgrimage to the Underverse"

 

  
 

—-

  
 

 

"Where are we going, daddy?"

Xander smiled softly as he tucked the blankets around his younger daughter, and bent to press a soft kiss to her forehead. "We're going to a place that we have to guard."

"Why, daddy?" Wills asked, cheerfully, holding onto the blankets and onto her beast. Xander had tried to suggest that their daughters should have teddy bears and dolls at one point, and Riddick had scoffed the idea, saying that they were something that would make a person soft. But when Xander had gotten an idea in his head, he sort of stuck to it, so although they were rough and really kind of ugly, he had made stuffed animals, ones that looked slightly like giant monsters with massive teeth and claws. He had jokingly referred to them as the beasts, and the names had stuck. Wills was starting to fall apart, because she dragged the damn thing everywhere, and one of it's ears was barely hanging on by a thread.

"Because it's part of our job, darling," He smiled, brushing her curls back.

"What kind of job, daddy?"

He smirked. "Being the Lavelle and the Lord Marshall."

"Ooooh." She nodded, hugging the beast, frowning for a moment. "So it's your job and father's job. So it's not actually our job at all."

"No," he laughed. "Well, maybe someday."

"Am I Lavelle too, daddy?" She asked, eagerly, and Xander laughed, kissing her forehead again.

"No, your sister is Lavelle."

From the other bed, Ziza called over, "Because I'm the oldest. And the oldest is the Lavelle. So daddy is the Lavelle because he was the oldest of his family."

He hesitated, and smiled sadly. He wasn't, not really, not if his father was to believed. He was the youngest, and if his siblings hadn't been slaughtered, he would not have been the crown prince of the Furyans. But he was all that was left of his family. "That's right, Ziza," he said, instead.

She grinned, and flopped down on her pillows, considering him for a long minute, thoughtfully.

"What's that look for?" He smirked slightly, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Just thinking," she shrugged, and dug under her pillow. He wasn't sure if he was terribly proud or sort of sad when she tugged out her own beast and a large knife, which she flipped over and over in her fingers like an expert.

He settled on proud.

"You two should sleep," he said, softly.

"I'm not tired, daddy," Wills said, confidently

"You will be, in a few minutes," he smirked, and stood, ruffling her hair. "You know the drill, Ziza, watch out for your little sister."

"Yes sir," she nodded, smiling briefly when he walked over and bent to kiss her forehead.

"Sleep well, little ones," he said, softly, turning the light completely off when he left their room. It has always made him slightly wondrous at that, that Furyan children never seemed to be afraid of the dark. But he had never been, either, and he realized now that it was because they had been taught how to kill anything in the dark that might scare them. The night wasn't scary when it was a playground for them to hunt in.

Riddick was laying on their bed, with Jesse curled against his chest. He was holding the little cup they fed him from - he was really too big for a bottle, as he had a mouthful of sharp little teeth that he loved to gnash and bite people with, and he ate for the most part solid food. But they still gave him milk, when he cried for it, and his lover was sprawled out on the bed with their youngest in his arms, feeding him, carefully. Some of it dribbled out of the cup as Xander approached, and he smiled as he watched a few drops of milk slide down his very small son's jaw, splashing on his mate's chest.

The other looked up just slightly as he approached, but he seemed rather absorbed in what he was doing, so he didn’t say a word.

Xander smiled softly, and settled beside him on the bed, reaching out to brush Jesse's downy soft hair back.

It was a quiet sort of moment, the kind they didn't normally get, usually. There was a usually a flurry of action, things happening all at once, things trying to happen all tat the same time. There was still the issue of that mercenary lurking in the back of Xander's mind - she had said he was an old friend, which could have just meant that he'd crossed her path before, or that she was actually an old friend. Either was possible, really, though he hadn't made a lot of friends since he'd arrived in space - not friends that were still alive, in any case. And if she was a merc that he'd crossed before... well. He was the second largest bounty in the verse. There could be hundreds of mercs that she could have been. Still, that was set aside for the moment, and for the moment it was just their quiet little family life.

"What are you thinking about?" Xander asked, abruptly, looking up at his mate.

"That it's been too long since I've bedded you."

He snorted, and flopped down into the pillows beside him, properly. "Don't be silly. You bed me all the time, Riddick, remember? I mean, seriously, you have the sex drive of a rabbit. And apparently the breeding power of one, too."

"Well, it's been too long." He said, anyway, and looked up. "I'm putting Jesse in his sister's room tonight."

He arched his brows, smirking up at his lover. "Is that so?"

"That is," Riddick agreed, and set the cup aside, shifting the sleepy little boy on his lap so that he could pat his back, burping him. As far as Xander was concerned, any moment in which his mate acted all fatherly and all was the moments when he felt the closest to breaking that line that he had set up years ago, and shifting beyond just needing Riddick. "Because I feel as though we need a good long night."

"Am I going to be sleeping tomorrow?" He smirked.

"It is possible," Riddick agreed, and finally stood, carrying Jesse over to the bassinet. He lay him inside, then picked up the whole unit, and arched a single brow at Xander. "I will be back."

"Good luck," he smirked, knowing that their daughters weren't sleeping yet, and that if Riddick went in there, he was going to be detained, at least for a little while. Their daughters were adorable, but they were also sort of insistent when they wanted to spend time with their father.

When the door opened, and then closed behind him, he waited for a moment, then Xander laughed when he heard little Wills scream of "Father!" and grinned to himself. Knew it.

Knowing that he was going to be alone in the room for a few minutes, anyway, Xander stood, and headed to the walls of their room. There were massive bookshelves around the edges of the room, though he had never really paid that much attention to them. He'd lived in this chamber for years, but there were so many other things to worry about than about books. There were several children running around, and Riddick kept knocking him up with more... He hesitated, pressing his hand to his stomach, and swallowed, frowning. No. It was just because he was thinking about it, that's why his belly felt sort of funny. Still, there was the leading of their nation, hell, rebuilding the nation from out of the chaos that had reigned right after the Lord Marshall's death. There were more important things to worry about.

But Aereon had said that it was rumored that the Lavelle's kept records of where all the outposts were. If there really was an entrance to the Underverse in the little town of Sunnydale, presumably the answer was somewhere in these massive shelves But finding it here wasn't going to be easy. There were thousands of books - and not all of them were in English

Sighing softly, he brushed his fingers along the spines of the books, frowning slightly. He didn't really know what exactly he was looking for. This was like being back in high school all over again, and having the vague description of "there's an apocalypse coming again" to go on, and trying to find something that would lead to an answer. It wasn’t even like trying to find a needle in a haystack, because at least a needle in a haystack would stick you when you found it. It was really like trying to find a needle in a stack of needles - somewhere among all those books, there was one book that was a little different.

As his fingers trailed over the spines, he hesitated at one.

He could read the label on the side, even though it wasn't in English It was the language that he and Willow had written to each other in, back in public school. It was the language that had gotten him in so much trouble with some of his teachers, because when he was having a particularly grumpy day, he'd just write in that, instead of in English, because it pissed his teachers off to no end, and that had made him happy.

He'd thought he'd made that language up.

But no, there a book sat, written in that language, with the title "The Words of the Furyans" written on the spine.

He frowned, and tugged it off the shelf, flipping it open as he braced it carefully in one arm. It was a heavy book, over sized as usual for old fancy books, with a leather cover, and the writing inside was printed on a press of some kind, not just typed up and then printed like so many other books where, he could actually see the indentations where the printing press had pressed down on the pages.

It was kind of amazing, especially when he began to read, and realized that it was some kind of litany of stories that the Furyans apparently used to tell, like legends and myths. It was sort of beautiful, actually, and the fact that ti was written in a language he'd thought only he and Willow knew, well. That made it even more interesting.

Xander was smiling as he read, chuckling softly at how this one story was written - it was about those two brother gods that the freak in the market square at New Mecca had tried to tell him about. It was funny, though, the way this one was written, like it was really more of a comedy of errors.

Riddick's lips brushed along the side of his neck, and Xander sighed softly, leaning back into his mate.

"Put the book away," Riddick rumbled, his voice deep, his chest pressed close to Xander's back. "We had plans."

"I know, but I found a book..." He groaned softly.

"I will burn it if you don't come to bed, right now," the other growled, nipping at the edges of the shell of Xander's ear. "We had plans, and those plans involve me fucking your tight ass for hours, remember?"

"After hours, I won't have much of a tight ass," he smirked, but snapped the book shut, reluctantly, setting it on the little side table.

"Much better," Riddick growled, and abruptly scooped Xander up.

He laughed, kicking at the air, pleased. His mate held him up by his shoulders and another arm under his knees, and he smirked as he informed him, cheerfully, "Did you know that this is called the bridal carry?"

"Fitting, as you're my bitch."

"Riddick!" He snorted, swatting at his arm.

The other growled, almost playfully, and threw him down on the bed before he caught his wrists, pinning them up above his head with a bruising grip. Xander might have complained, except that he was arching up under Riddick, gasping softly, pressing harder into the other's violent embrace. The rougher that Riddick got with him, the more he seemed to like it. Maybe he really was a masochist. No harm in that, not since he was already pretty damn well convinced that Riddick was a sadist. It was like they were a matched set. Salt and pepper. He was the salt, Riddick was the pepper. It worked.

"Mmm... is this what you had in mind?" He panted slightly, pressing up into his mate, licking his lips.

"Not far off," Riddick growled, and crushed their mouths together. They never really seemed to kiss like normal people. Their every kiss was like a battle for dominance, a struggle to be in control, but in the end, it was always Riddick that won.

It wasn't that Xander couldn't take him, at least on this.

It was really sort of that he liked what happened when Riddick won on these things.

He groaned, and arched up into him, straining against the hold the other had on his wrist, not that he wanted to get free, but that if he strained and tugged, then Riddick pressed him down harder, and when Riddick pressed him down harder, well. He liked it. He liked it a lot, really.

Riddick growled as he pressed closer to him, and yes, he squeezed his wrists harder, just as Xander had wanted, and he nipped at his jaw, his throat.

It was fucked up, maybe.

But Xander curled his legs around his lover's hips, tugging him closer, and cried out as the other rolled into him, and embraced the fucked up perfection of what they had together

He'd never have it any other way, not in a million years.


	5. Red Queen - Like pilgrim's wither'd wreath of flowers

 

 Xander was feeling less rosy the next morning.

He was in the bathroom, curled over the toilet, groaning softly, eyes tightly closed. His insides were still in there, all right, which was a bit of a relief, for once, but they were sort of churning around in a way that was completely unpleasant, so he groaned and pressed his forehead to the cool metal that made the bowl of the toilet, sort of curled around it like he was a faithful paying homage to the porcelain goddess. Only, of course, it was metal rather than porcelain, but that wasn't the point. The point was that he was throwing up again, and he sort of was used to that during very particular times.

Riddick leaned in the doorway, arms crossed. "Something you want to tell me, bitch?"

He groaned softly, and just rolled his head to the side enough that he could see his mate. "I blame this on you, entirely."

He smirked, and stepped into the room, crouching beside Xander before offering him a glass of water that Xander hadn't even noticed he'd had. He took it, gratefully, and sipped at it, quietly, before offering, "You know, I could just have the flu. I could be sick."

Riddick arched a brow, and ran his hand down over Xander's back, lightly "When have you thrown up except when your pregnant?"

He groaned, and set the glass on the floor. "Never."

"I didn't think so," he smirked, stroking the other's back, still. "This is good news."

"How is this good news?" He rolled his eyes, pressing his forehead to the metal, still, hoping that the cool of the bowl would somehow permeate into his brain, which sort of felt like an egg on a frying pan inside his skull, like it was sizzling and crackling and actually getting overcooked. It sort of made his head hurt, but really it was just really more brain addling, like he couldn't quite think straight. "Jesse isn't even a year old yet, he's so not even out of the diaper stage... I don't want two babies in diapers at once, Riddick."

He smirked, and pressed light, almost butterfly light kisses across Xander's bare shoulders. That wasn't terribly Riddick like, but he always seemed so pleased whenever Xander turned out to be pregnant again. (Really, was this turning into a thing?) "Then we'll have to train him early."

He groaned, piteously, and let the other pull him back against his chest. "In the middle of all of this, though? There's a mercenary after us - and this mercenary managed to not only make us both think that the other was dead, but also triggered the wrath of the Furyans - but there is also the whole pilgrimage thing. We have to go on a pilgrimage to the Underverse, and from the star charts Vaako got for us, I'm going to be about ready to pop by the time we get there!"

"When you were pregnant with Ziza," he rumbled, quietly stroking Xander's still-flat belly, "You were trapped with me on the Hades planet, were nearly killed at least three times, and then you were captured by Mercs and dangled in front of me like a piece of bait on string. When you were pregnant with Wills, you were in a slam, and then you escaped from that slam with her still inside you, and reawakened a nation. When you were pregnant with Jesse, you were leading an army into battle in the valley of Tricorn, and nearly were killed at least a good half dozen times."

He groaned, and waved at the sky. "Exactly! Why can't I ever have a normal pregnancy?!"

"Because you are Lavelle of the Furyans," he shrugged.

"...can I abdicate the title until I've had this baby?" He suggested, looking up at him.

"To who? Next in line is nine years old."

He groaned. "Oh right, Ziza's the next Lavelle. Well, as amusing as it would be to watch her trying to lead the people into battle and stuff... no, that's probably not a good idea. Well.... at least we have Lord and Lady Vaako to help us."

Riddick growled.

"...what?" He blinked up at him, twisting in his lap so that he was laying on his side, and could face Riddick properly. "What's wrong? Vaako's a good man, Riddick."

"I am aware," he growled.

"So... I mean, you're the one who keeps making jokes about bedding Vaako because you can't get me to do what you want at that moment," he pointed, then hesitated. "It's not Vaako that's the trouble for you."

He hesitated, then shook his head.

Xander frowned, and murmured, "Paala is a good woman too, Riddick."

"She wants to claim our children as her own." He snapped.

He blinked up at him, surprised. "Why the hell would she do that? If she really wants to have children, she can - well, no, I suppose she is an alpha woman, she's sterile... but Vaako is a Prime man, he could have children!" He perked up. "I've heard of it happening before, he could just get someone to knock him up, and then they'd be able to have children."

"Not actually possible," he shook his head.

"I've heard of it," Xander said, defensively.

"And who, exactly, did it happen to?" The other asked, his fingers now trailing down Xander's side.

Xander hesitated, then finally had to admit that he had no idea.

"Because it's not possible."

"Why not?" Xander demanded, sitting up, pressing his palm against his lover's chest, frowning. "You and I had children, even though I'm a man, because I'm a prime and you're an alpha. That's how it works, you know that's how it works."

"How long was I fucking you before you got pregnant?"

Xander hesitated at that question, not really sure. It wasn't the kind of question he normally considered. "...I dunno, about a year, maybe?"

"Why didn't you get pregnant right away?"

He sat back, frowning as he pondered it. "I dunno, cycles?"

"The amount we were doing it?"

He flushed slightly, and scratched at the back of his neck. "...that's sort of a good point. I mean, were having so much sex, and so often... yeah, I guess we probably could have gotten me pregnant anytime. Hey, that is a good question... why did it take around a year for me to get pregnant, if we were really having that much sex all the time?!"

"Because we were mated at the end."

Xander blinked at him. "Huh?"

Riddick just shook his head, and took Xander's hands, manhandling them so that Xander had one palm pressed to his own chest, and the other pressed to Riddick's. Under his palms, their hearts beat perfectly in time with each other, a perfect rhythm that neither of them really understood. It was funny, Xander had always sort of figured that in order to link two people together for life, there had to be some kind of ceremony. A priest, or a preacher, or a librarian with a certificate saying he was allowed to officiate, or something, and some kind of things that were said and things that were done, to make the thing official. But neither of them had even been aware of the fact that their lives were twining each other so perfectly together until it had already happened, and they were bound by the laws of nature and need, and unlike a marriage which could be broken with something as simple as a divorce, they were really well and truly linked together.

"Only mates can have children," he said, quietly.

And Xander finally understood.

It wasn't just the sex that they'd had that had done it, though obviously that had played a big part in it, too. It was the fact that they were linked, linked so completely that neither could really live without the other any more. That was what had made their bodies link up so completely that they were able to conceive.

"Oh," Xander whispered, then snickered, lightly, "That's like the perfect birth control, you know that? Just make sure that you're sleeping with the Furyan that isn't your mate, and you're fucking set."

Riddick rolled his eyes, and swatted Xander's forehead.

He laughed, and curled into him, muttering, "Oi. None of the violence, now, I'm carrying your child. Again. Apparently I like doing that."

He smirked, and trailed his fingers down the other's spine, down to his lower back, scratching lightly, until Xander arched like a cat that was being scratched in just the right spot, all but purring. "I like when you do that."

"Of course you do," he snorted, shaking his head. "You just have a thing for pregnant men."

"I have a thing for you carrying my heirs," the other growled in his ear, and Xander groaned softly, eyes falling shut.

"Keep talking dirty to me, Riddick, I love it," he moaned, arching slightly.

Riddick laughed, and shifted to move Xander properly into his lap, then paused when there was a loud knock on the door to their apartment.

"Ignore it," Xander groaned, piteously.

"Soon," the other promised, and slid out from under Xander, standing.

"I hate you," Xander called, pouting as he lay on the bathroom floor, watching his mate walk, naked as the day he was born - presumably - across the room and open the door. There was hushed talking on the other side, and he reluctantly pushed himself up, still naked himself, and padded across the floor to see what Riddick was doing. He supposed he should have been ashamed, and trying to hide his nakedness and all that, but being a few billion light years away from the planet that had taught him about the shamefulness of nudity brought on by the snake and the woman in the garden kind of made him not care in the slightest, not right now, anyway. If people were going to be interrupting his private time with his husband, then they were just going to have to get used to the fact that he might, not, in fact, be decent.

It was Vaako anyway, int he doorway, so who in the Underverse cared? Xander really didn’t care if Vaako saw him naked. He really didn't.

Leaning on Riddick's side, Xander yawned, and said, "So what's the word, Vaako? Why are you coming by so early in the morning."

Their companion sighed softly, and shifted the pad that he was holding towards Xander, his face drawn and pale. "The merc is following us again."

His expression hardened. "Shoot her out of the sky."

"We would, of course, only she's being more clever this time." Vaako sighed softly. "She's staying just far enough back that not even our longest range weapons can catch her, and if we tried to chase after her, she's far enough back that she'd be gone before we could ever catch up to her. But she's following close enough to never lose track of our ion trails."

"Fuck," he scowled, considering the pad and the picture of the ship on the screen. It wasn't as clear of an image as last time, and he realized that was probably because of the distance that Vaako had mentioned. "Well, keep her away from us. If you ever see that ship come within range or even the longest range weapons, take her out."

Vaako nodded, quickly.

"That's just the cherry on top of this morning I needed," Xander groaned, and started to head back into the room, then called over his shoulder, "Riddick, why don’t you invite our friend in?"

Riddick didn't hesitate, simply stepped back and held the door open wider, an open invitation. It wasn't that he was really following his orders, it was more that Riddick was sort of curious to know why his mate was inviting the other man in. Riddick hadn't really liked Vaako at first, when they'd ended up with the Necromongers and all, because Vaako had obviously tried to kill him - and Vaako had been the one to take his mate away, and Riddick was nothing if not possessive. But when Xander had explained how Vaako had ended up saving his life actually a few times over before Riddick got back with him, he'd warmed up a little, and the last few years of working closely with him had gotten him to the point where he did, actually, consider Vaako a friend. Maybe not a close friend, or the kind he'd invite normally into his bedroom when naked, but he did consider him a friend, and he sort of understood the fact that his mate really felt a need for close friends, to feel like he had a connection with others.

And for Xander, Vaako was his friend. Riddick was his mate, his lover, the father of his children, and the man he loved to wake up with in bed. And hell, that even happened a few times, where Riddick hadn't left the bed for some reason or another - usually a flimsy one. But Vaako was his best friend, he was... well, he was the closest he had to a Willow and a Buffy, these days, so he kind of put up with the fact that it wasn't perfect by just treating him like he wanted to, like he was his dearest friend.

To his credit, Vaako played the part of the best friend expertly. He was a really quite good friend when he wanted to be, and typically, he wanted to be.

Xander had curled up on the bed, wrapping a sheet around his shoulders like a sheet, and patted the space beside him when Riddick approached, grinning when his lover flopped beside him casually.

Vaako hesitated beside the bed, not really sure what the proper move for him was next.

"Sit!" Xander patted the bed on his other side, grinning broadly.

Riddick snickered, and looped an arm around Xander's shoulder. It looked casual, but it was a declaration - this is mine, fuck off, you can't have.

Still, Vaako perched, awkwardly on the edge of the bed, considering them both.

"So. Do we have any idea who the bounty hunter is, yet?"

"She is not from the Mercenary Guild," Vaako said, holding the pad in his lap as he began to flick through some of the files, frowning slightly. "She has not been sent on any particular course, we don’t think. There is, of course, the possibility that she's just hoping to get the incredibly large bounties that hang over both of your heads, but there is no proof of that, one way or the other."

Xander frowned slightly. "Have you managed to track her vehicle? It looked sort of non standard."

"We have," he agreed, flicking through another few pages, then turned it towards them. "it's one of the shuttles registered to this ship. The Dark Athena."

The lightly playful smile that Xander had developed dropped immediate off of his face, and he paled, substantially. It was as though all of the blood in his body had been drained right out of him in an instant, because a moment later, he slumped against Riddick, eye wide, but he looked slightly stiff, even then. It was as though he'd been turned into some kind of statue.

Riddick leaned forward to snatch the pad out of the other man's hand, frowning at it, flicking through the information they'd gathered for a few moment. "This is it."

"That's not possible," Xander whispered. "She's dead, Riddick, I saw her die, I was there, it was... there was a massive whole in her chest, there is no way that she came back again, it's not even possible...."

"Who is this?" Vaako asked, frowning. He may not know all of their past together, but he was basically the source of information on board the Furyan fleet, and if he didn't have some of the information in regards to something, he did his damnedest to get a hold of said information. It gave him great displeasure to be out of the loop in even the slightest way. "Who are you talking about?"

"A woman named Revas," Riddick handed the pad back. "She was the captain of the Dark Athena. It was a merc ship."

"And we killed her three times!" Xander yelped, displeased. "Three times, we killed that son of a bitch! Daughter of a bitch, whatever you call the woman version of that! We killed her three times! And every time we killed her, she kept coming back, but that last time... I mean... no one can survive a whole in their chest, not that big... she was full on dead that time..."

"Perhaps[s someone took over her ship," Vaako suggested, frowning slightly.

"But she said, long time no see, old friend," Xander hissed. "And you don't know, there were these... drones... they were like, half corpse, half machine. They were fucking disgusting. I was almost made into one of those, before..." A dark shadow crossed his face.

"Before?" Vaako prompted.

"Before he was rescued," Riddick growled slightly curling Xander closer to his side. "By a girl. Lynn Silverman."

"And Revas killed her." Xander spat, venomously. "Well. One of her men killed her. It doesn’t matter who killed her, she was a beautiful little girl, and she didn't fucking deserve to get killed just because she was in the wrong place in the wrong time!"

Vaako nodded, quietly, watching him for a few long moments, as though seriously considering this.

"So if someone is coming from the Dark Athena, they are coming because of us," Xander whispered, dully. "It's not just because of the bounty. Even if it's not Revas. There would have to be someone on that ship that wanted to get revenge on us for that, at least, right?"

Riddick nodded, shifting to that he could curl his fingers over Xander's stomach.

Vaako didn't fail to notice the shift. "Does this mean that you were right, Lord Marshall?"

Xander groaned softly, pressing his forehead against Riddick's collarbone. "...don't tell me he figured it out before I did, too."

Riddick did smirk slightly at that, and nodded.

"Congratulations," Vaako smiled, reaching out to curl his fingers over Xander's ankle.

"...I don't feel terribly like this is good news right now. Not unless this kid is born with kung fu power grip or something and he can beat the shit out of the merc, whoever she is, before she managed to come and kill us because we killed her three times, or whatever." Xander groaned, and closed his eyes. "...this is probably one of the most bizarre conversations I've ever had, and that's saying something."

Riddick just snorted.

"So how long is it going to take us to get to the Underverse?" Xander perked up, abruptly, frowning. "Like... is it safer to travel in cryo, or not?"

"Not." Vaako said, immediately.

"You didn't even say - "

"Furyans hate cryo," he reminded him.

"You don't have to tell me," Xander rolled his eyes. "I hate that stuff. I get shitty nightmares and I always wake up feeling like I was better feeling before I went to sleep, and shitty stuff always happens around me when I go into it. Cryo ain't natural, I know it ain't, and you know I hate it too. But I'm thinking of the thousands of soldiers out there, and the storehouses of food..."

"Furyan vessels are designed for long voyages with no cryo." Vaako interrupted him, shaking his head. "You say imagine that there are thousands of Furyan soldiers with no food, I say imagine thousands of Furyan soldiers, all dreaming and hating cryo, and waking up repeatedly through the cycle, possibly injuring themselves or others int heir effort to simply get out of that unnatural state..."

Xander cleared his throat. "...I suppose I didn't think of it that way. Shit."

Riddick nodded, idly brushing his thumb over the other's belly. "Then we have enough food for the trip, Vaako?"

He nodded, seriously. "It won't be gourmet food, and if we could manage a stop on a planet on the way, that would be much better, but even if we cannot manage that, we have enough in the storehou7ses to get us there."

"But enough to get us back?" Xander arched a brow.

"As far as I can tell, that has never been an issue," Vaako frowned, and nodded. "At least not before."

"How long will it take us, though?" he frowned, snuggling a little tighter into his mate, who grunted and just shifted a little so that it was less awkward, the two of them laying there naked with their adviser sitting just feet away.

"I would venture about five and a half months, or so."

Xander groaned, and flopped back on Riddick's collarbone again. "What did I tell you? Ready to pop by the time we get there."

"If we go the slow side of five and a half months," Riddick rumbled, smirking slightly, "You will already have had the child."

"...good point." He frowned.

Vaako smirked and stood, quietly, "I'll leave you to your rest. Lavelle Xander..."

"Xander." He corrected, automatically, groaning softly.

"Xander," Vaako nodded. He was usually pretty good at that. And at least he remembered to call him Lavelle Xander, even when he did forget, and not Alexander like Aereon and the rest of the Furyan legions did. Still, it bothered Xander to be called Lavelle, and yet everyone seemed to delight in doing it. "There is a good chance that today would be the right day to talk to the legions."

He blinked at him, then down at himself. "What, tell them I'm pregnant already? I'm not even showing!"

"No," he smirked slightly. "I rather meant that perhaps it would be better to show them that you are on their side, and that we are taking the pilgrimage to the Underverse. Of course, the Lord Marshall could make such a speech as well, but it would mean more if it came from their Lavelle."

Xander groaned, and waved him off. "Fine, Vaako, later I'll get some clothes on and do it. Happy?"

He smirked, and nodded. "Very, Xander."

"Good." He grumbled, curling into Riddick. "I just want to go back to sleep. Can I do that, Riddick?"

"Yes," he said, calmly.

"Good," He grumbled, and flipped Vaako the bird when he left the room via the front door, and just smirked slightly when Riddick laughed as he lay there.

  
 

——

  
 

There was a lake spread out before him, the water silvery as it lapped at the banks of the little lake, quietly, pulling little pebbles along towards the water when the waves swept out, then pushing them back up the smooth sand when they came back in again.

Xander crouched on the sand, watching as the waves lapped at his toes, quietly, and murmured, "Is there anyone out there, today? Is anyone listening?"

The world around him didn't seem to respond in the slightest. It was quiet and still, and he couldn't even seen any animals around the lake, although when he narrowed his eye, sometimes he would see fish jumping in the water. He watched the stillness for a long time, content in his existence, then finally he rose, and turned to look away form the water, towards the trees that surrounded the lake.

He never really knew why he dreamed of massive forests like this. he'd certainly never seen anything like this when he was a kid, he'd never really gotten further than LA, and LA was only just over an hour away, maybe an hour and a half. he'd been to see the ocean, sure, once or twice, and he padded through the water, and sure, he'd seen pictures of massive forests and tree projects in books and all, but he'd never seen anything like that in real life, so he sort of doubted that such a thing really existed, sometimes. But here, among the stillness of the world he always dreamed of, there was a massive forest, with tall towering trees with paper thin, translucent leaves that didn't seem to provide much protection, beautiful though they were.

He left the shores of the silvery watered lake, and padded through the forest, footsteps landing on soft, loamy, moss covered soil. There didn't seem to be any underbrush here, no shrubs to catch at his pant legs, no grass to twist between his toes, no thorn bushes to catch on his feet. It was just still and quiet and empty.

Xander sort of felt like he was walking through a cathedral, the way the light shone through the leaves to cast just the softest green tinge over everything, and the way that the trees stood up, so still and silent, like they were waiting for something. There was a sort of heavy silence in the air, like they were all waiting for something.

Xander frowned as he moved through the trees, not able to put his finger on what exactly it was that it felt like they were all waiting for, and a little frustrated that he couldn't.

He didn't like being left in the proverbial dark.

In the literal dark, sure. He loved the literal dark. But proverbial, not so much.

He frowned, and ducked under a tree branch, then hesitated when he heard a twig snap behind him.

Xander spun to face the way he'd come, but there was nothing there, and there was nothing moving. There were fine dust motes drifting down through the air, but that was about it. He frowned, brows furrowed over his eyes as he tried to figure out what exactly it was that he'd heard, because he knew he wasn't insane, he knew he'd heard something, but what it was... he didn't know.

Frowning, he started walking again, just padding quietly along the path, when he heard another twig snap.

This time, when he spun around to face the way he had come, he saw just the barest flash of movement. He knew there was someone there, and he darted back the way he'd come, ducking under tree branches as he raced, feet pounding on the mossy ground, almost silently despite the speed.

And the person that he had heard, the person he was chasing, they ran too.

They were fast, son of a bitch, like a black blur out there ahead of him, and he scowled as he ran, faster and faster, trying to reach out for them.

Then abruptly, he broke through the tree line, and found himself on the very edge of a massive cliff. There was a yawning opening spilling out before them, as the cliff they were on overlooked a valley that was so vast that he could barely see the other side of it, obscured by misty distance. It was a beautiful valley, all full of the paper thin leaved trees and flowing rivers and rolling hills and it was truly a sight to behold, but Xander's attention wasn't on the spectacular vista, it was on the woman that stood on the edge of the cliff, smiling up at him.

She was every bit as beautiful as he remembered, with dark blond hair spilling around her shoulders, the sunlight catching in every little high light that he could remember her complaining about the cost for. She was wearing an outfit he remembered from one of their English classes, a dark green shirt and a pair of tight tight blue jeans that he had soft of drooled over at the time.

Compared to him, though, she was still a child, a little girl that smiled up at him with innocence and darkness both competing in her eyes, but he was a man, standing there, strong and broad.

It was as though, somewhere and somehow, their roles had been reversed.

Still, he stepped closer to her, slowly, smiling nervously, as though afraid if he spooked her, she'd just be gone, and it would have all been an illusion. "Buffy?"

Buffy beamed up at him, and said, brightly, "It's been so long, Xander."

"How are you here?" He breathed, stepping closer to her, opening his arms, and then she was in his arms, squeezing him tightly, her head pressed into his chest as he just breathed in the familiar scent of that stay-in home hair conditioner kit that she had bragged so much about, and he held her closer. He had thought she'd never be in his arms again. It was such a foreign idea, somehow, that she was even here, that he was even holding her. "I don't understand."

"I had to see you," she murmured, squeezing.

“But how did you even get here, Buffster? I mean, we're... we're millions of light years away... or something, I think. We're far from home, Buffy. How'd you get here?”

“You're the one dreaming of seeing me, and you're asking me how I got here?” She arched a brow.

Xander flushed. “...good point.”

She shifted back from him, slightly, smiling softly. “It's been a long time, Xander.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, smiling back at her, sort of dopily. “It's been a really long time. Super long time. You – you still doing okay, back in Sunnyhell?”

“It's Sunnyhell,” she shrugged, as though that explained everything.

And, honestly, it sort of did.

“So... tell me everything,” she grinned.

Xander took a deep breath. “Everything? Well, that's gonna take a while, there's a lot of everything to explain.”

“We're dreaming, Xander.” She smiled softly. “I think we've got time.”

“Come on, then.” He said, after a moment's consideration. “There's a cave, not far from here... it's kind of my home, in my dreams, I tried to write my whole fucked up story out.”

She snorted, but fell into step beside him, humming slightly.

As it turned out, there wasn't much point in going to his cave home thing, because he sort of ended up explaining everything as they walked, anyway. It was like falling off a log, really, talking to her, just as natural as breathing, falling back into old patterns so easily it was almost surprising at times. He used slang he hadn't heard in close to fifteen years, and she got it. He found himself talking almost too fast, apologizing for things he was saying, always gauging her expression to figure out what she thought of what he was saying. He had become a man in his own right a long time ago, he wasn't just Riddick's mate, or Johns' prisoner, or the Slayer's boy, not anymore. He was Lavelle Alexander, prince regent and now de facto spiritual leader of the Furyan nation.

But in that moment, he was so very much the Slayer's boy again.

And Buffy played her part, marvelously. She laughed when he told about dropping on Riddick's head, threatened death when he explained how Johns had dosed and tried to rape him, cooed when she heard about Riddick's overprotective tendencies, and squealed when he told her about his children. She was his old Buffy back, and it was... well. Perfect.

She giggled, when he tried to explain how he'd really been the heir apparent to a race of warrior aliens all along, though, and he flushed when she said, “You? But you're the most human person in Sunnydale!”

“Apparently, not so much,” he muttered, flushed.

“But, I mean... warrior race?” Buffy threw up her hands. “I mean, no offense, Xander, you were great at making stakes and all, but you were never much of a warrior.”

“You weren't there, when I was younger...”

Buffy looked sort of skeptical. “You were a warrior when you were younger?”

“Not so much,” he admitted. “But I did have some issues.”

“Welcome to the club!” She laughed.

“Yeah, well,” he grinned. “I never burned down my school gym. But I did stab my math teacher with a pair of scissors.”

“You didn't!” She squealed.

“Oh, you better believe I did,” he snickered. “Bastard totally deserved it, too.”

“Sure he did,” Buffy snickered. “And what did he do that deserved stabbing?”

“Honestly?” Xander grinned.

“I practically insist on it,” she smirked.

“I can't remember.”

Buffy snorted, shaking her blond head. “So what, are you saying that you're more like Soldier Xander now that just our regular old Xander-shaped friend?”

“Honestly? I’m more like Hyena Xander,” he admitted.

“Ew.” She crinkled her nose. “But you were all with the smelling me and being cruel to those weaker, like Willow.”

“I'm not so cruel,” he admitted. “But I do the smell thing. And the sort of... animalistic attacking thing.”

Buffy considered that for a long moment, then abruptly pointed at him. “You said you'd forgotten all about that!”

“Yeah, well...” he cleared his throat. “I lied.”

She swatted his shoulder. “That's for lying to me! I mean, I know you weren't _you_ , but still!”

He smirked, and slung his arm around her narrow shoulders, tugging her closer to his side. Funny, he'd sort of forgotten how very tiny she was. He'd gotten so used to being curled up to, well, Riddick, who was pretty much a brick wall in comparison to her. “Sorry. I wasn't the one who beat up on Angel, by the way.”

Buffy's light face suddenly darkened, as utterly as a storm cloud passing over the sun. “I know.”

“Buff?” He asked, surprised. “Are you okay?”

She sighed, heavily, and slid her fingers into his, holding his hand, tightly, like she was drawing strength from him. “Do you remember how technically Angel was _cursed_ to have a soul?”

“Sure,” he nodded.

“Well, turns out that a moment of perfect happiness would make him _lose_ his soul.”

He winced. “Ouch.”

“Yeah,” she whispered. “And you remember that... ah, party, I had for my seventeenth?”

“Sure,” he nodded. “That didn't exactly go as planned.”

“No... but I still sort of got my present,” Buffy said, flushed bright red. It took Xander a minute to realize what she meant, then yelped.

“Oh! _Angel_? Angel and _you_...?!'

“You're one to talk,” she flushed. “Married to a mass murderer.”

Xander drew in a deep breath, and said, slowly, “That wasn't actually what I was gonna say. Yes, your vampire boyfriend was evil incarnate, once, but so is my mate, sometimes. Hell, there are people out there who would call _me_ evil incarnate. I’ve done some stuff you'd probably be trying to slay me for back home, but...”

“Like what?” She frowned.

_How about cannibalism, for one? Drinking blood? Slaughtering my enemies, sometimes heavily pregnant? Handing Johns over to the micro-raptors with glee? Or how about being the spiritual leader of a race devoted to destruction and warfare?_

“Nothing, really. Just being a killer, you know, that whole thing.”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Xander, you realize I’m a hunter, right? I’m a Slayer, it's sort of in my job description. Kill, stake, stab. So I’m kind of okay with the whole killing thing.”

Xander smiled, awkwardly, figuring he'd just let her hold onto her wrong – oh so very wrong – illusions. “So, what happened when you and Angel... uh... you know. Did the little horizontal mambo?”

“Did you just call it the _horizontal mambo_?”

“...yes.”

Buffy rolled her eyes, and said, “Dork,” before continuing. “Well, he got his moment of pure happiness, I guess, because he... he lost his soul. And it turns out he's even _more_ evil after he had a soul for some one hundred years or so, so he... he decided to try and break our little family up, and I guess he decided you were a weak point.”

Xander growled.

“Oh, come on, Xander,” she said, quickly, flushed. “I know you're not our weak point!”

He grit his teeth, and said, sharply, “Have you ever heard of Furyans?”

She frowned, confused. “No...”

“I'm a Furyan, Buffy.” He said, nails pressing so tightly into his palms that he was pretty sure his palms were bleeding. He'd done that before. “Furyans are... we're not quite like humans. We're stronger and faster and... angrier. Like a whole race of Slayers. But it turns out we're more than that, too. We're the only thing that stands between the verse and... the undead. Exactly like Slayers, actually. But we're _made_ to fight the dead and the undead. And it's built into our systems to hunt them and... and the dead – and the undead – know it. So we're like... their natural enemies. Angel picked me because I was a threat, Buffy.”

“How do you know?” She asked, shocked.

“Because I wasn't scared of him,” he murmured. “I was never scared of him.”

“I wasn't, either,” she reminded him.

Xander arched a brow. “Can you _really_ say that you were never scared of Angel?”

She hesitated. “...no.”

“I know,” he murmured, running a hand through his hair.

“So what, he pretended that you beat him up so that he could get rid of you?”

“Honestly?” He sighed. “I think so.”

“Holy crap.” She breathed.

“Yeah,” he muttered, running his hand through his hair, again.

“So this is why your eye is all... silver? Cause of the alien thing?”

“Yeah.” He smiled softly, looking down at his old friend, at the girl around whom his world had revolved for several years. It was funny. There were friends he'd had as a child, longer than Buffy had been his friend, and they had long since slipped out of his memory. She had been around for, what, a year and a half, before he had found himself tumbling through space and landing on Riddick's head? Logically, he knew, fifteen years of running around space with his angry lover should have taught him to forget about the people back home. But he hadn't forgotten a thing. Buffy was still his best friend, as far as he was concerned, even though Vaako was definitely his best friend now, and Riddick was his world. He didn't have a crush on this girl, not anymore, but she made him happy, just the same. “My eye is silver because of the alien thing.”

“...what happened to your other eye?” She frowned, clearly concerned.

He took a deep breath, and murmured, “About six or seven years ago, someone found out that I was Riddick's lover. That I was the bearer of his children. So they tortured me... and they cut my eye out of my head. Trying to get his location out of me.”

She sucked in a sharp breath, horrified. “Why?”

“Because he had the largest bounty in the verse on his head,” he murmured.

“So?!”

“So, the greed is the creed,” he shrugged, and hesitated beside the shore of a little stream they were passing by. It was a beautiful little thing, the water singing and warbling over the small stones in its path, bubbling and babbling past them, and he crouched beside it's little shores to scoop up a palmful of the water, sipping at the water he had cupped in his hand. Things tasted better here, the water sweet and so cold that it almost hurt his teeth when he sipped at it. Maybe it was because he was dreaming. “Riddick was worth enough to make a man very, very wealthy. Really, worth enough to make a good half dozen man very wealthy. And... well. That can make people do crazy things.”

“But cutting a person's eyeball out?!” She gaped at him.

“I don't think you understand exactly how much my husband is worth, dear Buffy,” he smirked slightly.

“Yeah, but... that's just _wrong_.” Buffy grumbled, crossing her arms as should crouched beside him, folding her arms over her knees, frowning into the water. The river just bubbled past them, seeming not to realize that she was glowering angrily at it. “I mean, remember Shakespeare with Mrs. Ramsey? And we read King Lear? This is like King Lear.”

Xander crinkled his nose. “Well, not exactly. The guy didn't go 'out out vile jelly' or grind my eye beneath his foot, or something... he just... sliced it out of my head. I don't even think I want to know what he did with it afterwards, to be honest.”

“But to do that to a person... because they think you'll be able to lead them to someone...”

Xander reached out to squeeze her shoulder, and smiled at her. “Does it make you feel any better to realize that, while Riddick is the most wanted man in the verse, I’m the second most wanted convict in the verse?”

She blinked at him.

“Seriously,” he grinned, sheepishly. “I'm the second most wanted man in the whole damn verse. Mercs would fall over themselves trying to get me, if they really thought that they could.”

“But you don't think they'd try?” She murmured.

Xander considered that for a few moments, then just scooped his palms in the water again, lifting his dripping hands up to his mouth so that he could sip at it. Finally, he looked up at his old friend, and said, “Yeah, I actually think they would, if they could manage it. I really think that they would, if they thought that they could manage it. See, Riddick is dangerous, and has a reputation out there, in the verse. He's the man you don't fuck with, because if you fuck with him, you don't come out of it alive. That's all there is to it, everyone is used to that. He's the killer of men, he's the fucking Riddick. But I’m worth nearly as much, and I’m the Prime. Everyone thinks that I’m the weaker of the two of us, so if they had to take their pick and figure out which one they had to try and capture... they'd come after me every time.”

“Have they tried?” Buffy asked, gently.

He hesitated, then finally nodded. “Yeah. They've started trying, again.”

“Damn, Xander...” she breathed.

“But I’m not the weak one that they seem to think that I am,” he smirked, and finally pushed himself to his feet, stretching, the sun warm on his shoulders, even if it wasn't all that bright. “I ain't called the Merc Killer for nothing.”

Buffy laughed softly, and shifted closer to him, hugging him, tightly. “I'm sorry, Xander. Love you, though. I’m sorry that this had to happen to you.”

He stroked her back, and murmured, “It's okay, Buffster. It ain't your fault.”

She cleared her throat. “...actually...”

“Actually?” He frowned, peering down at her in confusion.

Buffy took a deep breath, and closed her eyes, for a moment. “...this might be suicide to mention to you, but... I’m sorry. It _is_ my fault that you're here. It's me and Willow's fault. We're the reason this happened to you.”

He blinked at her, in confusion. “...what?”

“We... you remember, we thought there was a shape-shifter, or maybe that you'd been possessed, and when we found out that you were adopted... well, me and Willow thought that maybe there could be something in your past that... like... your family history, that would tell us what might be going on with you.”

He let out a long breath, shakily. “...what did you guys do?”

“It was supposed to be a heritage spell,” Buffy whispered, looking down at her feet, flushed. “It was supposed to be a spell to list your family history back ten generations, and it was supposed to tell us who you were, like... what you were. But something went wrong, and we asked Giles, he doesn't even know exactly what's wrong. With the spell, I mean. We didn't know. We thought we were _helping_ ,” she whispered, voice cracking slightly. “We really just thought that we were going to be able to save you and find our what was wrong and save you from your house arrest bit that you were doing...”

“Hey, come here.”

She darted into his arms, as he guided her closer into his chest, and pulled her tight and close, stroking her hair gently as he held her against his chest. Buffy sort of trembled in his embrace, but she was starting to relax, slowly, and he held her close, kissing the top of her head, softly.

“It's okay, Buffy,” he murmured. “Honestly, it's okay. I’m kind of actually really glad you guys meddled.”

She snuffled, looking up at him with red eyes. “...yeah?”

“Yeah,” he grinned, brushing the tears out of her red-rimmed eyes. “Think about it. If I’d stayed in Sunnyhell, I would have never found out that I was a Furyan. I’d have probably moved into my parent's basement, and then maybe I’d have gotten a job as a pizza delivery driver, or something. I’d have gotten fat and kind of depressing, and if I was really lucky, maybe I’d marry myself a nice, I dunno, vengeance demon or something, who would try to hex me into a toad when our marriage fell apart over my lack of ability to give her children or enough money, or the life she wanted, and I’d fall into a bottle just as heavily as Tony did, until eventually Spike took pity on me and drank me to get me out of everyone's misery. Here, sure, I’m a wanted bounty and I’ve sort of been in and mostly out of slams and I’ve nearly been killed about eight million times, but at least I’m, I dunno, _useful_ , here.”

“That never would have happened, Xan,” she said, firmly.

He snorted.

“No,” she said again, looking earnest. “You would have continued being a very important part of our team, and you'd have patrolled and kept the people of Sunnydale safe.”

“And probably ended up in slam – jail, I mean.”

“Never,” she said, fiercely.

Xander snorted. “ _Now_ you're just California dreamin', Buffster. Listen, what I am now, how I _am_ , now... that isn't the result of training, or something. I didn't have to be taught to be violent and bloodthirsty, Buff, just how to fight. Why do you think I took so well to hunting vampires? Because it was bred into me. If I’d been on Earth long enough, eventually my being Furyan would've caught up with me. I would have done something to get thrown in a slam.”

“You could've done the Slayer thing!” She protested. “Throw yourself into hunting evil!”

“Except that I’m a guy, Buffster. No Slayer's council would have taken care of me, remember?” He shrugged. “Besides, I’d had no training. I was the _human_ one of the group, remember?”

“If we'd known...” she started.

“That's the point, Buffy. You didn't know. Nobody knew. My mother had died, and mom did her best, but I was _totally_ a problem child.”

“Are your children problems?” She asked, almost knowingly.

He hesitated. “If I were measuring them by _human_ standards, I think they'd be absolute nightmares. Not Jesse, yet – he's a perfect little baby, he only cries when he's in pain, but they were all like that, when they were small. Vaako thinks that it's because Furyan babies know not to cry because it could be dangerous if someone hears them. All the Furyan babies are quiet. But the Imam sort of insisted on training Ziza up to be a little scholar and all, and he said he kept having to pull her out of classes because she had no patience for education and structure and sitting in neat little rows. I haven't had many problems, though, cause I sort of let her learn at her own pace.”

“But you don't think she's a problem child?”

“Naw,” he shook his head, considering that. “I was actually sort of proud of her when she made her pencils into shivs and tried to stab her tutor.”

Buffy snorted, rolling her eyes. “That would freak most parents out, Xan.”

“Sure,” he shrugged, laughing as he hopped up onto a log, toes curling around the grooves in the bark as he walked along it. “But most human parents ain't Furyans.”

“You really do think you're different from us, huh?” She murmured.

“Not from _you_ , necessarily, but from everyone else.” He cleared his throat. “Not from you, though. I actually think I’m awfully similar to you.”

“What do you mean?” She asked, clambering up onto the log behind him.

“Well, the more I learn about the Furyans and our history, the more I feel like I’m listening to one of Giles' long winded lectures about what it means to be a Slayer. Fast, strong, violent, with all sorts of instincts that tell us when to kill and when to run and when our enemies are close.”

She groaned. “Giles used to be really focused on the idea that I should be able to _sense_ my enemies.”

“Like spider sense, right?” He grinned.

“Yeah, kind of,” she laughed.

Xander reached up to grab a tree branch, and swung himself up into the tree. Funny, he could remember this being something he'd struggled with, years ago, and now it felt like it was the kind of thing he'd been made to do. He watched as Buffy grabbed the same branch and hauled herself up. He reached out at one point to help steady her, and wondered for a moment at this reversal of their roles. When he'd been back on Earth, she would have been the one to hop right up, and he – well, this wasn't really a true reversal, was it. Because he'd have been hopping up and down on the ground still, trying to get up onto the log and nearly managing to get himself killed while doing it. Still, this wasn't exactly what he'd expected.

“Well, that's the sort of stuff I do.” He smiled, straddling the branch, holding onto it tightly. “I can hear people's heartbeats – or their lack of them.”

She shuddered. “Creepy.”

“A little,” he admitted.

“But I could see how that might be handy,” Buffy admitted. “I mean, you walk into a bar, and everyone's got a strong, if totally drunk, heartbeat, except for one guy? I guess you know you've either got a vampire or a zombie on your hands.”

“Or a Necromonger,” Xander murmured.

“Oh yeah, you mentioned them. They sound kind of... unpleasant.”

“They're basically undead Furyans,” he smirked slightly. “So they're basically a vampiric Slayer. If that's not terrifying, I don't know what is.”

Buffy shuddered.

“And Furyans... well, turns out they kind of have a thing a lot _like_ Slayers,” he murmured.

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Well, turns out “hell” might not really be.... “hell”,” he cleared his throat, then held up his hands. “Don't quote me on this, or anything, because I might be wrong. But based on the things I’ve heard from the elementals and the research I’ve done myself, I’m pretty sure I’m right. See, there's this place called the Underverse. It's where souls go after they die.”

“So is it heaven or hell?” She asked.

“Neither... and both.”

“That doesn't make sense, Xander,” Buffy rolled her eyes.

“I know,” he nodded, but kept on with his point. “See, heaven and hell are mostly only talked about by really religious groups. And out here,” he motioned around them, trying to indicate the whole verse, not just the forest around them. “Religion isn't quite the big deal it is on Earth. There are gods and stuff, there are Christ-ers, who believe that the son of God went to a barbaric world where he was killed by the savages that lived there before he came back to life three days later...”

“Ouch.” She laughed.

“I know, right?” He grinned. “But they're more about _faith_ than religion. Hell, I’m the spiritual leader of a species and I don't, like, hold church services or anything. I just give them someone to lead them, someone to go to for questions.”

“Someone to blame?” She asked, smirking.

“So far, I haven't had so much of that,” he smirked back.

“But hell and heaven, they aren't really the big thing out here?” She asked, leaning back against the tree trunk as she considered that.

“Not so much,” he nodded.

“So, what is it, then?” Buffy frowned. “Because every culture, like, ever, has a place where the dead go.”

“The Underverse.”

“The universe and the Underverse?”

“Yeah,” Xander laughed. “Sounds ridiculous, huh?”

“Bonkers,” she agreed.

“The Underverse is where the dead go. And, they think, depending on what you did in your life, like if you were 'righteous' or if you did your job and you managed to get there in your due time, then you would either burn in the pits, or you would be one of the purified, that would rule in the Underverse. But it turns out there are places where the barrier between the universe and the Underverse are thin, and things can slip through.”

“Like the Hellmouth,” she breathed.

He pointed at her. “I said the exact same thing.”

“So, you mean, this whole damn time, we've been sitting on the hellmouth and battling the shit that comes out, and we're actually fighting to keep the – the Underverse-mouth closed? It doesn't have the same ring, Xan-man.”

He snickered. “It doesn't, but yeah, I think that's exactly what it is.”

“So, what...” Buffy took a deep breath, frowning as she considered that. “Why is the hellmouth – or whatever mouth – there, then? Is it one of those spots you said were thin? What's that got to do with Slayers?”

“Well, the Furyans are kind of the ones in charge of keeping the Underverse back. We're the ones expected to police those thin spots and keep things from squeezing through into the verse. We have outposts, apparently, scattered around the verse, at all the thin places.”

“Spots like Sunnydale, California,” she said, slowly, thinking she was starting to get it.

“Honestly, I sort of think the whole earth is one giant weak spot.” He admitted. “I mean, there are ghost stories all around the world. Ghosts are the first things that squeeze through those thin spots.”

“So you think the Furyans once had an outpost there.”

He nodded.

“But I’ve never once seen someone with eyes like yours,” she pointed out. “And you don't usually hear about super strong, super fast people.”

“Sure you do,” Xander said gently. “They're littered through human history. And superheroes? They didn't pull the ideas for superheroes out of their asses. Super strong man from space shows up and gets raised by nobodies? Sound familiar?”

Buffy snorted. “You're not Superman, Xander. No matter how many weird similarities there are between the two of you.”

He laughed. “I know. But all the same, my point stands, I think. I think there used to be a Furyan outpost out there. I think Earth was one of the places where we were trying to keep the Underverse locked in. my mother told me she'd been trying to get to an old Furyan outpost when she crashed.”

“I thought you said your mom died,” Buffy's brows furrowed.

“Yeah, but I talk to the dead in my dreams,” he waved that off. After all, Shirah had told him that death was not the end for Furyans, and he'd sort of assumed that she was right. “So she told me that she'd been going to an outpost... I sort of figure that maybe she'd gotten to the right planet, but that's she'd crashed, instead of actually, you know, landing. You know?”

“So you think there are a whole bunch of Furyans out there, patrolling the Earth? How come I’ve never run into one on my patrols, then, and everyone keeps saying 'one girl, in all the world'?”

Xander took a deep breath. “I don't think there _is_ an outpost. I think there _was_ one.”

“So what happened to it?”

“My theory? They kind of ended up breeding in with the humans, and now they're... well.... Slayers.”

Buffy blinked at him, then laughed, and pointed out, “Can't be. I don't have those nifty silver eyes.”

“Neither did I,” he reminded her.

“Oh yeah,” she frowned.

“Besides, as awful as this is gonna sound, you wouldn't even be full blood Furyan, Buffy. Cause your mom is nice and all, but there is no way she's full blooded Furyan. She might be the one you got your Furyan powers from and stuff, cause holy crap, she was terrifying that night that Spike tried to take over the school, but... either way, I think if you _are_ a Furyan descendent, you're at least part ways human. So you're all strong and fast and killery because you're a Slayer, but I think you're a Slayer because you're part Furyan. Descendent of the colonists who were there to make sure the Underverse didn't break through into the verse.”

She whistled, lowly. “You're sure?”

“No, not exactly, because there's really no way to be exactly sure, at least not as far as I know, but... yeah. I’m pretty damn sure about it.”

Buffy whistled, lowly, shaking her head. “...can we get out of the tree?”

He snorted, and nodded, sliding out of the tree. The branch bobbed and swayed slightly under his weight, but he still landed on the rough bark of the log that ran across under them first, then slid off that to rest his feet on the ground, curling his toes in the soft moss. It was like a natural carpet, spread out over the floor of this natural cathedral.

Buffy dropped to the ground behind him, lightly. Lighter than he'd been.

“Can you ask Giles, maybe?” He asked, turning to look back at her. “Like, when you wake up, too, can you ask him if he can research the origin of the Slayers, too?”

She hesitated. “No.”

“Why not?” Xander frowned, confused.

“Xander... you should already know the answer to that,” she said, softly, walking up to him. “You said it, earlier. You talk to the dead in your dreams.”

A cold feeling swept through his body. It was as though the ground had opened up beneath him, and gravity had caught hold of his insides, ripping them out of him, leaving him like a hollow shell of the man he'd been, a moment before. “No. That's – that's – you're the Slayer, that's not fucking _possible_ , Buffy.”

She reached up to slide her arms around his shoulders, pressing her face into his chest. “It was Angel, Xander.”

He sucked in a sharp breath.

And he understood.

Quietly, she leaned back again, tears in her golden eyes. He'd assumed that he didn't hear her heartbeat because they were dreaming. He hadn't realized that it was because she simply didn't have a heartbeat anymore.

“I'm so sorry, Buffy,” he whispered, trembling slightly.

“So am I,” she murmured.

Her voice was slurred, as she spoke, like a slight lisping, as she was speaking through a mouthful of fangs. Her face had too many angles on it, now, bumps and ridges in places where there weren't meant to be bumps and ridges, twisting her sweet little innocent face into the face of a monster, twisted and unnatural and broken. It just wasn't right.

“Are you... are you at least not suffering anymore?” He murmured.

“Yes, thank god,” she smiled up at him.

“Good.” He pressed his lips to her forehead, quietly, and felt the strange bone ridges melt back into a smooth forehead under his lips.

“I do have a message for you, though,” she said, quietly, and Xander shifted back to look down at her, frowning slightly as he tried to pay attention to what she was saying. “Time is running out, Xander.”

“...you too?” he groaned softly.

“Sorry,” she smiled, sort of sheepishly, and patted his cheek. “But yeah. Time is running out.”

“You got an estimate on how much, or...?”

“Honestly? No.” She admitted, sort of reluctantly. “I wish I did.”

“I really wish you did, too,” he laughed.

“If I find out, I’ll try and come talk to you in your dreams again.” She patted his chest. “Deal?”

He snickered. “Deal.”

  
 

\---

  
 

Wills was sitting on Xander's chest when he woke up.

He had been sleeping quite peacefully – this wasn't the night that he'd dreamed of his old best friend, but just some other night, well over a month later – and he had been curled close to Riddick, his lover's muscular arms looped around his waist, holding him against his chest. But even though those strong arms were still around his middle when he woke up, there was a heavy weight on his chest, and opening his eye, he realized that it was his daughter, sitting on his chest, looking down at him with whiskey coloured eyes.

He started for a moment, then groaned softly, and leaned back into Riddick's chest, his head resting on his mate's collarbone as he looked up at the little girl. “...hey sweetie. What's the matter?”

“Nofing.” She said, sweetly, and shifted closer to him, until her child weight was actually making it harder for him to breathe. He winced a little, and tugged her closer still, so that he could get her to curl by his side, instead of on his chest, so that he could prevent her from crushing his lungs and squeezing the breath right out of him. He didn't like this whole... being crushed thing. But he also didn't want to move away from Riddick, so fine, he'd get her curled beside him. Granted, his belly sort of got in the way of a proper little cuddle, but it still had to be better. She giggled when he moved her, patting his cheeks cheerfully. “Daddy is getting fat.”

“Oi. Not a nice thing to say, sweetpea.”

“Fat, daddy, fat!” She sang, cheerfully, wriggling around. She was small, for her age, really. She was five, but he would have thought maybe three or so, based on the size that Ziza had been at her age. He wasn't entirely sure if it was because she'd been born premature – nearly two months early, and two months in Universal Year measurements was much longer than two months in Earth years. She'd been early – so early that there had been concern from the men and women that had been around at the time that she'd been born that she wouldn't make it. There hadn't really been any medical personnel to help him with the delivery – the Necromongers didn't keep medical personnel. They believed that if a person died, then they deserved to die. It was their due time. But Xander had been damn sure it wasn't his due time, that it wasn't the due time of his baby girl. He had almost lost his first daughter, he was _not_ going to lose his second. He could remember it, laying on this very bed, dizzy and lightheaded from blood loss, squeezing the shit out of Riddick's hand, because it was sort of revenge for the fact that Riddick hadn't been there for hand squeezing the last time he'd delivered their child. Vaako had been the closest thing to a medical staff they'd gotten, and that was only because he was really the only person that could be trusted to be at the bedside of the Lavelle in labour, but he hadn't really known what he was doing, either. It had been Riddick that had saved the day, though, the one who had pried Xander's fingers off of his, and shoved their adviser aside to save their child from death.

He couldn't even remember, really, what Riddick had done. He just knew that he'd been rather much blinded with pain, until finally his lover had shifted closer to him, and lain a tiny, bloody infant on his chest.

And now that infant was a bouncing, bratty little girl, who was currently bouncing beside him on the bed and teasing, “Daddy is fat, daddy is fat, daddy is fat!”

“And Wills is skin and bones!” He laughed, tickling her belly.

Wills squealed, eagerly, and flopped onto her back, kicking at the air. He grinned, watching her. It was funny, because he hadn't been lying when he'd said that Furyan babies were almost silent. But Wills wasn't a baby anymore, she was old enough to be in school, where they back on Earth, and here, on the Basilica that was their home, she fought and wrestled with the other children her age and younger, and Xander's attempts at getting her to read had worked, to an extent. She could read Furyan, anyhow, so that was something.

Riddick shifted behind him, and Xander glanced back as the other man curled over him, half pinning him under the weight of the larger man. The Lord Marshall reached out to lay his hand on Wills' stomach, and the little girl's laughter faded as she just beamed up at her father, happily.

“Hello, fa'fer,” she said, cheerfully, lisping slightly. It was funny, because she _could_ speak properly. She just didn't like to.

Xander sometimes wondered if he could do the same.

Riddick smirked slightly, and Xander felt like his heart was going to melt. It was sort of one of those things. Riddick was big and tough and manly and sort of terrifying - and he absolutely could not stand it, when he acted like this. It was like he was the roughest man in the world - with the softest interior under that bristled, sharp exterior. That, and Xander really just liked when he woke up in his lover's arms. It was really more often than not, these days, which did make up for all the times that it had been the other way around, mostly.

"She needs her father around her," Xander murmured, then added, "So do we bring them along on this pilgrimage thing of ours?"

"We're not going to send them away," Riddick said, and while that didn't exactly answer the question, it answered it enough to satisfy him, anyway. It was really all that needed to be said. Neither of them dealt well with being sent away, especially if it was for their own good.

Usually, Riddick was the one sending Xander away, and that just sort of ended up pissing him off, most of the time.

"Fa'fer," Wills said, earnestly. "Daddy's getting fat."

"Is he now?" He drawled, and Xander groaned.

"Okay, don't you start on this, now."

But his mate just slid his hands around Xander's middle, spreading his palms flat over the curve of his belly, and Xander rolled his eye, shaking his head as he looked down at Wills. "Now look what you've done. Your father is terrible when he gets like this."

Riddick growled in his ear, and nipped at his earlobe.

Wills just giggled, and pressed her cheek to his stomach, quietly, frowning earnestly, like only a small child can. It was a serious sort of expression.

"What are you doing?" He asked, looking down at her downy curls, amused.

"Listening," she informed him, primly.

"What are you listening for?" Riddick rumbled from over Xander's shoulder, and for a moment, all he could focus on was that deep rumble vibrating like a miniature earthquake behind his back, pressed into his spine.

"If the baby is talking." She said, quietly.

Xander laughed softly. "The baby's too little for talking, Wills, honey. Even Jesse doesn't talk yet, does he?"

She lifted her head, frowning for a moment, then shook her head. "But he cries when Dame Vaako makes the lights too bright."

"Does he?" He asked softly, although he already knew that.

She nodded, feverishly, and reached up to grab Riddick's hands where they were pressed against his belly, squeezing her father's fingers tightly. "She turns the lights on real bright and then Jesse cries and cries and cries cause it hurts his eyes. It doesn't hurt my eyes, daddy, because I don't have special eyes. But Jesse has got special eyes, daddy."

"He does," he agreed.

"He's gots eyes like you and fa'fer do, daddy. He can see in the dark! I can't see in the dark. I wish I could, though, cause then I could sneak up on Ziza..." she clambered up to her feet, and started stalking around the edge of the bed on her tiptoes, exaggerated movements. "And then I could JUMP on her, daddy!"

Wills squealed, and leapt down onto the bed, bouncing as she did, and Riddick catching her was really probably the only thing that kept her from toppling on top of her pregnant father.

Xander snickered, though he was disappointed when Riddick sat up, holding their daughter in his lap. Oh sure, he loved to watch Riddick cuddle with their kids, it sort of reminded him of the softer side of the killer of men, but on the other hand, he really, really liked it when Riddick curled close to him. It was sort of the reason that he was pregnant with their fourth child, anyway.

The door opened, then, and he sat up anyway, reluctantly.

It was Ziza, walking into the room, with a splash of blood drying on the bridge of her nose.

"Holy underverse - Ziza, honey, come here!" Xander gasped, shifting to the edge of the bed, and reaching his hands out towards her. She sighed heavily, but came towards them, and he took her jaw in his hands, turning her head this way and that as he tried to figure out where the blood had come from. But it really only took a moment's inspection to realize something - the blood was arterial spray, and based on the way it had splattered across her nose, there was really no possible way that it was hers. He dropped his hands, finally, and said, "Who did you kill?"

"I could only be so lucky." She sighed, and shrugged. "I just wounded. He'll be fine."

"All right, who did you wound?"

"Lord Callic."

He frowned for a moment, considering that, then turned to look over at Riddick, who was still holding a squirming Wills in his arms, though his expression was nearly downright gleeful. "Isn't Lord Callic the one who runs the old quasi-dead chambers?"

His mate nodded, smirking.

"Well then. No communication for us, for awhile... at least not until we find someone else who knows how to corral them." He shook his head, and turned to grin at his lover. He smirked back at him.

Ziza grinned, almost deviously, and squeezed his hands. “Are you proud of me, daddy?”

Xander smirked, and thought of what Buffy had said, in his dreams.

_Are your children problems, Xander?_

“I'm very proud of you, Ziza.”

And the soft contented sound that his mate made told him that Riddick was, too.

The perfect little mass murdering family.

  
 


	6. Red Queen - Pluck'd in a far-off land

 

 

  
 

The Underverse was maybe a month away, and with it, the birth of Xander's fourth child.

He was beyond the point of fear, now. He supposed he should still _be_ worried, after all, none of his pregnancies had been exactly easy or 'normal'. The fact that he was a pregnant man, alone, probably spoke to that. But he wasn't human, he was Furyan, and Furyan primes, male or female, bore the children. Oh sure, he still sort of worried about what his friend's reactions might be, were he ever to get home to Earth, but dwelling on that sort of made him feel like he was going to puke, and he wasn't so much a fan of that option. But he really did feel beyond the fear, now. He hadn't even been this far along when Wills was born, and she'd turned out beautifully, after all.

But this _was_ the part of the pregnancy where he had the hardest time sleeping.

The hallways of the Basilica were dark and empty. There wasn't really night and day, not in space, but they had a whole scheduled timetable based on the Universal Day of 20 hours. It wasn't perfect, but it created a sort of order, and considering there were easily several thousand people aboard each of these ships, order was sort of an important thing.

Palm pressed to his belly, he hissed, “Stop doing barrel rolls in there! I know they're fun, but you're giving me heart burn.”

At least his restless little one gave him a chance to think. Oh sure, he'd rather be in his bed, curled into Riddick's chest and dreaming, but sometimes it was nice to wander in the darkness, goggles around his neck, and mostly unneeded in the darkness, and just sort through his jumbled thoughts. It was quiet, at night, and still.

There was a soft hiss of released air behind him.

It was a strange sort of sound, a bit like a balloon releasing its air. Sometimes engines would release steam like that, and sometimes it would be an elevator valve, or something. But for Xander, it evoked memories of being on the Dark Athena, the mercenary vessel, where he'd been tortured as a twisted sort of revenge for helping Riddick escape. The undead man-machine things they'd kept there had made a hiss sound like that when they took a step, their dead limbs working on virtue only of the hydraulics worked through their bodies.

He twisted to the side.

The knife flew past his head, only just, and sank into the wall, vibrating dully where it had landed, humming like a tuning fork.

He turned to face his attacker, already pulling a pair of blades from the belt that sat low on his waist, just under his belly.

The woman that stepped out of the shadow registered in his eyesight as cool. Too low for normal body temperatures, like the Necromongers did. But she didn't look like a Necromonger – she wore a red mechanical suit that looked sickeningly familiar, and for a moment, he really thought it was Revas, standing before him.

But no, it wasn't the hawk face of the mercenary he'd killed, basically, three times over.

She _was_ sharply familiar, though.

“Doctor Silverman?!”

“Recognize me, do you?” She said, and he realized that yes, it was the same woman from the elemental planet. Why she'd grown her short hair out into long dreadlocks that looked terrifyingly like Revas' hair, he didn't know, but of course he knew this woman.

Fuck, he'd watched her young daughter die in front of him when mercs had hit her with a bullet meant for him.

“I thought you'd been killed.”

She grinned, though it was not a comforting sort of smile. “You'd like that, wouldn't you, all the loose ends tied up, the very last traces of the Silverman family, wiped out.”

“What are you _talking_ about?” he gaped at her.

Doctor Silverman snarled, stepping forward, jerking a knife out of her own waistband. “My daughter is dead because of you! My daughter is dead, and you left Jaylor alive, you sick bastard!”

“Wait, Doctor...” He held up his hands, alarmed.

“I know every detail of your life,  _Lavelle_ ,” she spat the word like it was something disgusting she wanted out of her mouth as quickly as possible. “You have killed dozens of people. Probably far more than are actually recorded, because they only seem to record the significant people you kill. But fuck, you couldn't kill the son of a bitch that wanted to rape our dead bodies?!”

“Doctor Silverman,” Xander said firmly, growling slightly. She'd been such a rational woman. Just _killing_ her wasn't a good option. “I did _not_ kill then.”

“No, you waited for your first kill just long enough to let Jaylor have what he _wanted_!” She roared.

He took another step back, gripping the knives so tightly his knuckles were white. “He wanted you dead, Doctor Silverman.”

And suddenly he understood. Knew why she was cold, why he'd heard the same hissing sound as the hydraulics of the drone.

“Because Jaylor got what he wanted,” she snarled, grinning almost viciously.

Because she _was_ dead.

And that changed things. He couldn't rationalize with a dead woman.

Xander snapped his blades up, and when she dashed forward, furiously, he met her blow for blow. Their blades rang dully against each other, and though he fought with the rage of a Furyan, she fought with the dogged determination of a machine kept alive by two things – hydraulics, and revenge.

Explaining to her that he was torn up about Lynn's death too wouldn't help. She'd been clinging to the hatred of him so long and so hard that there was no way he'd be able to break her of that.

You didn't save a person from hatred like that. You got the hell out of their way.

Only getting out of her way would never do, because she would never stop, until this whole thing played out. Xander slammed the knife in his left hand against the shoulder of her armour, severing several wires, and grinned grimly when that made her arm hang at a sort of odd angle, and figured that there were two possible end games here. Either she would die, or he would. One or the other, there wasn't really a middle ground, here. Well, there could be, but that would be both of them dying, because he could see no way in which this could end with them both alive.

Her blade caught his collarbone, then, and Xander cursed himself for getting distracted when blood blossomed on his skin, paled from years spent in space instead of in sunny California. Blood ran down his chest and in between the twisted ties of the vest he wore, like a braided trail of carnage.

She grinned, grimly, to see his blood spilled.

Xander flipped his own blade up so that he held it backwards to standard form, and slashed the blade's point across her eyes. He had long ago learned the power of eyes.

Insight of a one eyed man.

Maybe he was lucky. Or maybe he was just very good at what he did, because she didn't manage to reel back until his blade had sliced through one of her eyes.

But she didn't howl and cringe in pain, like he'd expected, and her eye didn't gush fresh red blood. Instead, she kept coming at him, teeth bared, and a thick, dark liquid, almost black, seemed to ooze from the wound.

...the undead were disgusting.

Normally, his all Slayer influenced Sunnydale skill instincts would be to stab her in the heart. But the nifty, creepily Borg-esque armour sort of prevented that.

So he did what any real comic book nerd would do.

He went for the head shot.

Shifting, he slammed the blade deep into her forehead, right between the eyes.

For a long moment, he was afraid it hadn't worked.

The Doctor Silverman – the late Doctor Silverman, that is – slumped finally to the ground, rather like a sack of potatoes, the metal of her armour ringing and clanging to the floor before she toppled back, her one remaining eye staring blankly up at the ceiling, the knife still protruding from her forehead.

Xander took a deep breath, and stepped back.

His heart was pounding a mile a minute, desperate fast and just this side of panicked, a stuttering little rhythm that careened down through his chest and into his belly. The child inside him – Riddick said girl, Xander said boy, an old debate, and the score was so far 2-1 – was taking the acrobatic routine he had been performing before to new and dizzying heights. He had been still while Xander had been fighting the psycho bitch once known as Doctor Silverman, but now that the fight was over, he was doing his level best to make Xander an absolute wreck.

He really wasn't sure if it was better or worse that no one had rushed to his aid, but really, it had been, what, less than a minute?

He pressed his palm into his stomach, and whispered, “Calm down, little one. I promise, it's going to be okay. It is.”

Standing there, still bloody, for a long moment, Xander looked wrong, perhaps. It wasn't bloody enough for him to have fought a real battle, not really, and as he stood there, panting, still holding one of the knives, standing over the robot body of a woman he'd once tried to save, he figured he sort of must look like something from a Ridley Scott movie.

Or a Michael Myers film, maybe.

He stepped forward, finally, crouching beside Doctor Silverman's body.

“I'm sorry,” he said, quietly, honestly. His voice cracked slightly, and Xander took a deep, shuddering breath. “I really am. I wish I could show you. I tried so hard to save your daughter, Doctor. When Lynn died...” he drew in another deep breath. “I was pretty innocent back then. Had never killed a man, or nothing. I was so... _green_ , to all of this. Lynn's actually the reason Riddick almost dropped me off on a random colony and left me,” he admitted. He didn't like admitting that. “Because when she died, I just shut down. I went full on catatonic, Doctor Silverman, I was a mess. It just wasn't fair, you know, that she'd lived through all of that, then died just because someone was trying to shoot _me_? Trust me, I feel as guilty about her death as you think I should.”

He took a deep breath, and leaned over to gently close her eyes. She deserved respect, at least.

“I'm sorry,” he murmured.

Suddenly, she surged up, hands wrapping tightly around his throat as she grimaced, baring her teeth at him. The knife still wobbled in her forehead, trembling slightly as she dug her fingernails into his neck, drawing blood.

Gasping for air, Xander slashed at her with the knife, slicing open her face, her neck, her shoulder.

The baby in his belly started struggling again.

“No!” Xander dug the knife in her throat, again and again. It caught in her skin, her flesh, around her bones, and the knife made a sickening, almost slurping sound as it plunged into dead flesh over and over again, til the blade and his hand both were covered in long coagulated sludge that used to be blood. But still, she kept her vice-like grip on her throat, and Xander was starting to lose the battle to breathe. His vision was greying out at the edges, and he was seeing spots.

He was Furyan.

He _couldn't_ die like this.

But it might not save him, not this time.

And then Doctor Silverman suddenly didn't have hands.

Her body fell back, her remaining eye open in shock and apparently confusion, but her arms now ended in dead flesh stumps, rather than hands.

Xander gasped, wrenching the hands off of his throat, the nails tearing at his flesh as he tore them free, and threw them away, as hard and fast as he could.

Riddick chopped her head off, next, then just kept chopping.

By the time his mate stopped, there wasn't anything recognizably “human” left of Doctor Silverman. Even her armour had been strewn across the floor, in pieces.

Panting, Xander said, quietly, “I think that may have been overkill.”

Riddick hauled him off the ground, and gathered him up in his arms. Xander sort of felt, in that moment, like the swooning maiden on the front cover of every romance novel ever, half faint and clinging to the strong, muscular arms of his lover as the other held him up.

He found he didn't really mind.

Riddick's fingers were skimming over his face, his neck. He was sort of used to this whole over-protective-Riddick-touches-everything thing, and he didn't interrupt, letting him reassure himself, or whatever it was, exactly, that Riddick got out of this every time he did it, without disruption. When his inspection seemed, finally, to be over, Xander murmured, “Sorry you had to come save me. Again.”

Riddick snarled, and kissed Xander so fiercely he really thought he was going to pass out after all.

  
 

\---

  
 

Vaako hesitated beside the throne, offering a data pad.

Riddick growled, lowly, and flatly ignored the other man's offer. Ever since Doctor Silverman had landed on the ship and tried to kill Xander, he'd sort of gone non-verbal. He'd also flatly refused to let Xander out of his sight.

Xander was curled in his lap, actually, right at that moment, and he sighed, holding out his hand. “Here, Vaako.”

The other man shifted closer, and set the pad into his hand. “We've been trying to find out where exactly our security slipped up, that the merc woman managed to get onto the Basilica. Some of the men have suggested that the reason she got on the ship is because someone let her on. Our security is too tight for someone to just... sneak aboard a ship like the Basilica."

"Vaako," he said, not terribly patiently at that moment, "Half of our security system is depending on the fact that the rest of the verse is terrified of the Furyans, and if they still aren't afraid of the Furyans, then the sheer fact that we use the same ships as the goddamn Necromongers is enough to terrify them away from ever trying to attack us. That's not what I call a security system."

"We are a species of warriors. We're not exactly so useless." Vaako said, sharply.

"And yet an undead drone of a woman that I used to know and who was trying very hard to kill me got on board our ship. Not just any of them, either, Vaako, she got on board the Basilica. The flagship. I sort of take offense at the fact that this woman very nearly killed me, and my child, because apparently our security systems are shit."

"...we are looking into it." Vaako said.

"Well... look into it harder." He grumbled, shifting slightly on Riddick's lap and half tempted to try and get off of it.

"We are." His friend said, with a dangerous note to his voice that reminded Xander, for one strange, hesitating moment, so very much of Riddick. Vaako wasn't just a former Necromonger, and he wasn't just a man smart enough to be made into the adviser to the Lord Marshall. He was a warrior, beneath it all, and a Furyan hand print glowed on his chest. "We have taken it as a personal insult that a mercenary was not only able to gain access to our ship, but that she nearly succeeded in killing our Lavelle. The Furyans have had a long history of other races trying to slaughter us. The Necromongers nearly succeeded where others had failed before, and you brought us back from that brink. We will not let this bitch do that to us. Again."

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, Riddick made jelly of her." He patted his mate's shoulder. "Are you going to grace us with a word or two, any time soon, Riddick, or are you staying non-verbal?"

He grimaced, and growled.

"You know, you are often very eloquent," he rolled his eyes. "You know, I think you spoke more on the Hades planet, the whole time that we were there, than you have spoken to me in over a decade."

Riddick snarled again, and Xander groaned, looking up at Vaako. "You know, this is sort of romantic, in a lion that wants to rule the whole pride sort of way, you know. So you think someone let her on, then."

Vaako frowned, then nodded. "I think it the most likely explanation, yes."

"Then find out who the fucking traitor is. Because I am going to do what I didn't with Doctor Silverman. I am going to tear them apart myself."

  
 

—-

  
 

Xander had learned a lot of things from Riddick, over the years. More things than he was pretty sure Riddick had actually meant to tell him - and one of those things was how to get away from Riddick himself.

He was good at this part. He'd learned a long time ago to walk in other people's footsteps, and cover his scent, and mask his path. He had learned where to stand and where to move and where to hide so that the other man, the other man that ran on instincts to an extent that even Xander hadn't managed to embrace yet, though he wished he did, couldn't find him. It was a delicate balance, really, between hiding enough that the other couldn't catch him, and not trying hard enough that the other would know that he was trying. Xander was good at hiding now, though.

That was why he was sitting in the rafters of his observation platform, staring up through the massive windows at the stars.

This ship, though Furyan now, had been Necromonger, before, and there were Necromonger stylings and marks over the whole room. Around the edges of the massive windows he was looking through, there were carvings of faces twisted in agony and rage and pain, things that had been styled after men, though they looked really too tortured to still be men. Even on the rafter he was leaning on, there were spines along the edges that reminded him of human backbones. Fucked up people - but they were really just like they were a stronger, angrier version of what he was. What they were. It sort of reminded him of what vampires were to humans - they used to be the same species, then same kind, but something had twisted them into a bloodthirsty and violent version of what they had once been. The Necromongers had focused on the idea of the Underverse so hard that they'd become a twisted version of what they had been.

"I didn't hide well enough, did I?"

Riddick pulled himself up onto the rafter that Xander was already sitting on, crouched on it like a bird of prey, considering him.

Xander didn't have the energy to fight about this anymore. Riddick had been keeping him so close to his side for the last four days that he hadn't really had time to breathe, not really, he'd just been pressed against Riddick's side and letting his mate hold him close. Riddick was a hard man to argue with, when he was being protective. But he just didn't have the energy. So he closed his eyes, and leaned back against the post behind him, and waited.

But Riddick didn't grab him, and Riddick didn't growl.

"The Imam prayed for your soul, on Hades."

Xander opened his eyes, startled, blinking at the other man. Riddick was still perched on the rafter, watching him, quietly, all corded muscles and barely contained tension.

"When he thought you were dead. They all thought you were dead. I thought you were dead. He prayed for your soul, and he tried to pray for mine."

"Did you let him?" Xander whispered.

The other man rumbled as he spoke, his voice low in his chest. "I wasn't going to let a hoodoo holy man try and save me from a fate that I would most definitely have deserved if I had gotten it. I am a murderer. I am aware of that. I have penance to pay, when it comes time to pass through to the Underverse myself - and I have no doubt that I will pay it, when I get there, in my due fucking time."

"Any one can be redeemed, Riddick," Xander murmured.

"Not the man killer."

"Anyone." Xander said again.

"I told him not to bother," Riddick said, as though he wasn't arguing the point. "I told him there was no point in him praying to a god that had abandoned me. I believed that his god lived, and I believe that there is a god in the verse. But I don't think that god gives two shits about me."

He considered his husband for a long few minutes, frowning slightly as he tried to read the expression on the other man's stoic face. "I believe you're wrong."

Riddick huffed slightly, smirking as he considered that.

"No, really. I honestly believe, Riddick, that you are wrong. If there was no god..."

"I never said that I did not believe that there was a god." Riddick interrupted him. "I believe in a god. You don't spend half your life in slams with a horse bit in your mouth and not believe in a god. But you don't start your life as a piece of shit dumped in a liquor store trash dumpster with your umbilical cord wrapped around your neck and think of god as a merciful being. You start life that way, and you get like me. You believe he's the biggest mother fucker out there."

"See, that's where we're different." Xander said, softly. "I hear that, and all I can think is that you lived. You were a Furyan, Riddick, they tried to kill our entire species, and all that's left are a few little traces of us. If they had left you on our planet, you would have stayed there, and you would have been among the hundreds of thousands of babies killed on Furya that day. But you didn't, and you're here. They found you in a liquor store trash bin on another planet. It had to have been another planet, Riddick, or they wouldn't have found you. And if they hadn't have found you, you wouldn't have found me, and... and if I'd dropped on Johns' ship, without you there... I would have been his little slam bitch faster than you could blink. You know it, and I know it. And if I'd managed to get away from him, maybe if I was lucky, and got out there in the world, maybe I would have learned to embrace my instincts well enough to fight, and maybe I wouldn't have. Either way, I would have either ended up in slam, or dead. Don't you understand, Riddick? Because of that goddamn dumpster behind a liquor store, the Furyans are a race still. So I believe in a god that gives two shits about us. I believe in a god that saved both of us for something... bigger."

"An... interesting thought."

"You may as well say it," Xander shook his head, looking down at his hands, and sighing. "I'm soft. I'm the soft side of this... pair. Whatever it is we are. Maybe one of the most dysfunctional marriages in the verse, I don't know."

"You're not soft." Riddick said, his voice a deep, rolling grumble.

"Bullshit," he murmured, smiling faintly as he considered his mate. "Of course I'm soft. I tried to convince Doctor Silverman to see reason, when any sane Furyan would have just ghosted the bitch and been done with it. If I had just walked away from her fucking body, I would haven't needed rescuing, but I'm soft, and I wanted to pay her dead body some respect."

"Respect ain't soft."

"Apparently it is," he snapped, crossing his arms. "I nearly died. Again. I'm not your equal."

"Did I ever ask for an equal?" Riddick rumbled.

"Oh fuck you." Xander snarled, fingers tight on his thighs, hands clenched into furious fists. "You're a fucking Furyan, Riddick, the goddamn killer of men. You're the fucking Riddick. If I'm not equal to you in every respect, I'm not fucking worthy of being your mate."

Riddick did move, at that, shifting forward on the beam so quickly that Xander wouldn't have caught the motion if he hadn't been looking directly at him. He tangled his fingers in the straps tied up and down the front of Xander's vest, and jerked him forward, so that Xander was within inches of the other's face. "Did I ever ask for an equal?" He snarled.

Xander swallowed, and said, "You never asked for me in the first place, Riddick."

"Maybe I would've."

He frowned, confused. "I don't... understand."

"I am not mated to you because you fell on my head," he growled, lowly. "And you did not make your way into my bed because I was bored. You earned your way into my life, bitch. And it wasn't because you were equal to me, and it wasn't because you were worth worming your way in. I took you because of your backbone, because of your spirit. I took you as my lover because you weren't perfect... and you kept going anyway."

"I don't know the meaning of the word 'die'," Xander admitted.

"I know." Riddick growled. "I never wanted an equal."

"You know, you could have said something about that before I started betting all... struggling to be equal to you. I have spent almost fifteen years trying to be worthy of even being around you, I have spent thirteen trying to be equal of being your bed mate. Your lover. I've never been an expert at it, Riddick, I've been a fumbling kid trying to be worthy of you."

"You were." He said, voice low.

"I still am."

"You're the fucking Lavelle." He growled. "And I'd say that it was about time that you acted like it, but you've been acting like the Lavelle for long before I ever found you. You've got a backbone, bitch, you always have. It's the only reason you're alive - not because of me, but because you never fucking stopped. If you'd laid down and died on Hades, or on the Athena, or in Crematoria, I'd have left you there. If you had stayed in that cell I locked you in and just sat and waited... you would have stayed in that cell."

Xander took a deep breath, and looked down at the other's hands still tangled in the front of his shirt. "You mean you keep me around because I'm too stupid to lay down and just die?"

"Something like that." He rumbled.

"...that may be the shittiest basis for a relationship in the whole damn verse, Riddick, you know that, right?"

"We have become very good at doing exactly what the rest of the verse does not want us to do," Riddick pointed out, finally releasing his vest, and settling back on the balls of his feet again, just considering Xander for a few very long moments. "We have survived things that would make a hundred mortal men lose their minds. Perhaps die. Probably die. You are the bearer of my children, and you carry the fourth of our young inside you. I do not keep you here with me because I wish to simply keep someone at my side."

He frowned, and arched his brow. "Thought I was your slam bitch, Riddick."

"Never said you weren't."

"Yeah, except that I've been in slams. Crematoria and Butcher Bay ain't the only slams I've been in, Riddick. How do you think I earned a reputation as Merc Killer? It wasn't just that time on the merc world, it wasn't just that thing with Johns... and it wasn't just that guy on the Dark Athena. I needed to know things, Riddick, I needed to know where I was, in this verse."

He smirked slightly, tilting his head to his side slightly, considering him.

"I was in three. Before I ended up among the mercs, pretending to be one of them. I used aliases, of course, because I'm not stupid, but I know what it means now, in this verse. You can't use fake names, they use voice recognition and facial recognition and if you have something as distinctive as silver eyes, well. You're fucked, aren't you? Any yeah, Riddick. I was trapped in slams with people that only knew slams. Only knew how to live among convicts and prisoners, and I learned a lot about you, and a lot about me."

"You deliberately got yourself in slams so that you would know what it meant to be me?" He repeated, smirking slightly.

"Yeah," Xander laughed, and patted his swollen belly. "I'd just had a baby, remember? I'd left her behind with the Imam on Helion Prime and prayed no one would figure out who her father was. And then I went out, and I didn't try to find you, because I knew you'd never let yourself be found, not by me, not that way. So I found the first merc ship I could, and I killed the entire crew. And when they caught me, they took me to a double max slam. Me, double max slam." He laughed, shaking his head. "You know how many convicts tried to make me their bitch in the three days I was there? I lost count. I lost count of how many men I killed, Riddick."

"Because you're my bitch."

"You know, in slams, they trade bitches. Back and forth, the same way you used to talk about trading menthol cools. For favors, or food, or weapons, they'd trade them. And I thought that was kind of strange, cause you'd called me your slam bitch, many times before, and you'd never traded me. Hell, you probably could have... Johns would have been happy to give you many things in exchange for that trade. You know it as well as I do."

"I'm not most convicts," Riddick said, after a moment.

"So I noticed. The longer I was there, the more I realized that. I busted out of there, three days after I got in. They picked me up on escape charges, dropped me back in, different one this time. Still a double max. I was out before the day was over."

"I approve." He said, finally.

"Thought so. Stayed out close to a year this time, before I got picked up by an asshole crew that thought they had a big old bounty on their hands, and this time, I got tossed in a triple max slam. Really, the first people who had a brain in their damn heads. And you know what? It was actually a challenge to get out of there."

Riddick finally laughed at that, and held out his hands, calmly. Xander listened to the unspoken order, and shifted forward into his mate's arms, curling against his chest, resting his head on his collarbone.

"I learned a lot about life in a slam there," he admitted. "How to play the rules, how to know when to push and when to move and when to play your cards. I learned how to talk to them, how to deal with them. I even developed a taste for menthol cools." He smirked slightly. "When I could get 'em. Seemed almost... ironic, to smoke your money. And you know what, I wasn't anyone's bitch there, either. They tried. Trust me, they tried. But I got out of there with the knowledge that you were still the only person in the whole damn verse I'd ever slept with, whether that's a good thing or not, I don't know, and... well. You know what happened next, you found me at Tangiers, and the rest, so they say, is history."

"You're missing three years in there."

"No idea what you're talking about." he frowned slightly.

"I found you on Tangiers five years after you left Helion Prime. You left Helion Prime three months after I did. That means, with the time you've accounted for, that there are three years missing in that story."

"I'll tell you later," Xander promised quietly, and pressed his lips to Riddick's. "Much later. There are some things I did back then that even you wouldn't have expected. C'mon. Vaako says we're almost at the Underverse. And we've been avoiding it long enough."

  
 

——

  
 

Xander hadn't really been sure what he'd been expecting, when Vaako had said they were arriving at the gates of the Underverse.

Their ship was slowing, just starting to land on the surface - whatever the surface was - and he left the Necropolis, which was the heart of the Basilica, where the throne room and the quasi dead rested, and hurried, Riddick by his side, Vaako on his other, towards the massive doors that led out of the ship. Dame Vaako followed them, leading Ziza and Wills and carrying Jesse. He hadn't thought that they should bring them, perhaps, but Vaako had brought up a good point - that they were the future generation of the Furyan future. They were the ones who were going to lead their nation, once they had reached their own due time, and it would be their responsibility to keep the Underverse contained.

The doors opened, and they stepped out onto a solid, cobble-stoned courtyard that spread out before them, and Xander suddenly understood what Vaako had meant by the Gates of the Underverse.

They were literally gates.

Massive fucking metal things, several stories high, at least, curved on the top and barred, like they belonged to a wealthy estate, rather than to a whole verse, and there were no walls or fences running out on either side of them, and as far as they could tell, nothing beyond them.

They were gates, sitting on a courtyard that sat in space, with no rhyme or reason for it being there. It shouldn't even have atmosphere, a place like this, because this wasn't really even a place, just a strange anomaly in the verse that Xander honestly thought belonged somewhere with a random engine drive and maybe a restaurant. It would be fitting, the restaurant at the end of the universe, and this sure as hell looked like the end of the universe. Beginning of the Underverse. Either or.

"I thought you said only the Lord Marshall had ever pilgrimaged here." Xander said, finally.

"Only the Lord Marshall does." A new voice joined theirs, and they turned to watch as the Purifier walked slowly down the ramp behind them, frowning slightly. He was still the Purifier, whatever power that title held now, and it didn't hold much. It didn't mean what it had with the Necromongers - with the Furyans, the Purifier was meant to help them, not to convert them, as he had been before. And somehow, this power had made him more than he had been even before. After all, before he'd been the Purifier, he'd been the Lavelle. "The Lord Marshall, and his Lavelle. We stand at the gates, but we cannot pass through."

"So this is something Riddick and I have to do alone?" He frowned.

"Always knew we'd face the end alone, together." Riddick smirked slightly, almost pleased by this turn of events.

The Purifier smirked, and inclined his head, confidently. "Then alone you must pass through."

"What's on the other side?" Xander asked the Purifier, frowning as he stepped forward, taking Jesse from Dam Vaako's arms. She smiled, demurely, at him, and inclined her head, stepping back. Shifting his son in his arms, he stroked Jesse's dark, still-downy hair, and murmured, again, "What's on the other side of the gates of the Underverse?"

"Only those that have been there know." The Purifier said, quietly.

He took a deep breath, then pressed his lips to his son's forehead, closing his eye for a moment, just breathing in the smell of his little boy. He didn't know what lay beyond those gates. It might be just the land of the dead, but he'd done his research. Not all of the Lord Marshalls that had gone there before them had actually lived. Seven Lord Marshalls had ruled the Necromongers, but dozens more than that had tried to rule them. And failed when they reached these gates. This could be the last time he ever saw his baby boy, or his daughters. He hoped not, but he knew the odds.

"Daddy?" The little boy in his arms asked, confused. He didn't speak much, but he could stumble out simple words, and he had taken staggering steps.

"Stay with your sisters, Jesse, they'll take care of you," he murmured, quietly, and stepped forward to hand him carefully over to Ziza. Her expression was intent and almost furious as she took him, stern and strong. "Listen to me, Ziza. Take your sister, and your brother, and..." He hesitated, lifting his head for a moment, drawing in a deep breath, then said, firmly, "Run."

Ziza was a defiant child.

But she held her baby brother against her chest, caught her hand in her sister's, and bolted back aboard the Basilica, her boots ringing on the metal as she ran.

"I don't understand," Vaako said, brows furrowed.

"You said that perhaps Doctor Silverman managed to get on board the Basilica because someone let her aboard." Xander straightened, and shifted to stand beside Riddick, fists clenched tightly at his side.

Vaako frowned, and nodded. "Yes, that was a possibility."

"The traitor stands among us." Riddick said, his voice a rumble that seemed to start from deep in his chest and spread through his whole body.

Confusion flickered across their adviser’s face. "Riddick?"

"Dame Vaako, tell me." Xander looked over at his friend's wife, seriously. "What is the Necromonger way?"

Her brows furrowed. "My Lord Lavelle, we are no longer Necromongers."

"No. That's true, isn't it?" He looked up at the Purifier, crossing his arms over his chest. "Tell me, Purifier, what is the Necromonger way?"

The man frowned, then said, simply, "To keep what you kill."

"To keep what you kill." Xander agreed, and looked up at Riddick, quietly. "Isn't that why we're here, Riddick? You kept what you killed, and now you rule the very thing that tried to destroy you?"

"To be fair," Riddick drawled, "They were awakened, and became the thing they had been trying to destroy."

"True." He nodded.

Time seemed to slow, almost to still. It was as though, standing so close to the Underverse, the verse itself was having difficulty keeping up with them.

"You actually think," Vaako growled, tightly, "That one of us would betray you?"

"It was suggested, once, that I might be killed, that one could keep what I had." Xander said, ignoring the kick in his belly, ignoring that his little one was protesting, fighting to keep still. "That they might become Lavelle, though of course, Lavelles are born, not made. And then I realized that no, no one wanted me dead to become Lavelle. They wanted me dead... so that my mate... would keep their new bride." He lifted his jaw. "Isn't that right, Dame Vaako?"

Vaako drew in a sharp breath. "Paala?!"

The woman drew herself up straighter, a terrifying figure despite her small stature, powerful despite her size, and snarled, "It would have been flawless."

"You forgot one thing." Riddick rumbled, and slowly pressed his ulaks into Xander's hands.

"And what is that one thing?" She sneered at him.

Vaako stepped up on one side of his wife, and the Purifier slowly on the other. Both held out a knife to her, silently, and she snarled before snatching both of them. They both stepped back, and her eyes flicked again to the Lavelle as he stepped forward, ulaks held at his sides. Paala sneered, and spat, "I wanted to be Dame Alexander, once. I thought I would be happy to be your bride." She sneered. "But you are a prime, and I an Alpha, and you would have been Lord Paala, instead. Not such a hardship. I would have taken it gladly, but you refused me. So I had to use more... creative measures."

Xander shook his head. "Then why send a merc to kill me, Paala? If that were truly your plan."

She laughed. "I never sent a merc to kill you, Lavelle. I sent a merc to kill your mate. Apparently choosing skill over actual motivation was a mistake, on my part. I thought her desire to destroy would overpower her desire to end your pathetic life. I wagered wrong, clearly."

Somehow, the knowledge that the merc had been sent for his husband rather than him didn't really make Xander feel any better.

He slashed at her with the ulaks.

Paala was an alpha. For a Furyan, that meant she was the military power of their society. He'd often figured that she wasn't really much of a fighter, because he'd, well, never seen her fight. But she was, in fact, a fighter. She was as much a warrior as any other alpha in their society, woman or no.

She slammed back with an equal force, meeting him blade for blade, and shoved him back.

But Riddick hadn't been lying when he said that Xander's very best attribute was the fact that he never knew when to say die. He'd been given the chance to rabbit a million times before in his life, but Xander didn't rabbit, Xander moved forward again and slashed and sliced at her with all the power that he had in him.

And he sliced her head off.

Xander stepped back, panting, sweaty, blood running down his forehead and jaw, dripping from his blades, and watched her headless body fall limp to the cobblestones as her head rolled away on the ground.

"You forgot," Riddick murmured, stepping forward to rest his hand on his mate's shoulder, looking down at her still body, "Who you were fucking with."

  
 

—-

  
 

They'd come to the Underverse for their pilgrimage, not just to expose the traitor in their midst. Exposing the traitor had sort of become a big thing, all things considered. Xander hadn't been sure it was going to work, that they were actually going to be able to figure out who it had been, but Paala had given herself away, earlier.

He wasn't sure she'd known she'd done it.

But she had, when they had jettisoned the remains of the body of the merc from the ship. It had been a fleeting moment of expression, but for a woman who tended to wear a mask of emotionlessness like armour, it had been enough. It had been disappointment.

Xander took a deep breath, and squeezed Vaako's shoulder, quietly. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be." he murmured, eyes distant. "She had no love for me. Had she succeeded, she would have been Lord Marshall, and I would have been nothing."

"Technically, I'm your wife now," he cleared his throat, and patted his friend's shoulder again. "But for the love of all that is holy, don't hold me to that, okay? I kinda got a good thing going with my own husband, so I'm not sure I could handle two."

Vaako laughed, softly, and reached over to squeeze his shoulder, in turn. "I will try not to."

Xander laughed softly, and headed back to where Riddick and the Purifier were talking, in low tones. They were halfway between Paala's body, which still lay there still on the cobblestones, and the gates. The gates that waited for them, like something out of Dante's Inferno, looming and waiting for someone to pass through them. He didn't like them for a moment, but he knew that they had to pass through them, had to get through them and go on this pilgrimage, just get it over with. He reached out to touch Riddick's arm, lightly, and said, "We should get moving."

"Want to get it done with?" Riddick arched a brow.

"The pilgrimage to the Underverse is not something that someone 'gets done with'," the Purifier frowned, considering that seriously, for a long moment.

"Then what is it?" Xander asked, quietly. "We're supposed to go make our mark on the gates, to let them know that we're planning on keeping the Underverse back, that's what I've heard, but how the fuck, exactly, do we do that?"

"I don't know," the Purifier admitted. "I've never been there."

"Neither have I," Xander smirked. "Suppose that's about to change. C'mon, Riddick... w really ought to just... get it over with."

"I thought we weren't calling it that," the other man rumbled, and reached out to take his hand. He squeezed his hand, and lead him towards the gate, regardless.

Xander curled closer to him, relieved, though he couldn't help the anxious nerves that were rising in his stomach, in his chest, clawing at his throat and trying to work their way out of him, trying to form nerves into words, into a scream of horror and terror and begging to turn back. He didn't want to cross over that barrier, but even more than that, his guts told him not to go through this place, that it was dangerous. His heart was skittering, a desperate pounding, but for once, that didn't correspond to any movement inside his womb, or whatever it was called, when a man had it, instead of a woman. The child in his belly, son or daughter and not yet due for nearly two weeks, stayed still. Sleeping, perhaps? He didn't know if children slept in the womb, or if his child was.

He sort of hoped that he was. He'd rather his unborn son slept through this whole ordeal.

The gates seemed even more ominous, the closer they got to them, a sort of terrifying macabre thing. "You ready for this?" Xander asked, quietly.

"Ready as we'll ever be." Riddick frowned.

"I'm glad you're with me," he murmured, squeezing the other man's hand. "Til Underverse come, right?"

"I'd say it's come."

Somehow, Xander had sort of expected the gates to the Underverse to swing open, like a yawning mouth into hell - after all, wasn't this basically the exact same thing that stood under Sunnydale, but with a prettier face on it? But the gates didn't just swing open, and still, the view on the other side of them didn't change. It was still the same black, the stars, that could be seen on their side. They gates didn't even open when they reached them, and Riddick reached out to test the strength of the bars, shaking it slightly, frowning.

"Solid looking things," Xander remarked.

"How do you get in to something like the Underverse?" Riddick frowned, and pressed his palm against the metal lock plate, and pushed.

The left gate creaked open, slowly, making a sound like the door of a haunted house might.

"Well." Xander murmured. "That's not ominous at all."

Riddick smirked, and slipped inside, still gripping Xander's hand tightly as he led him into the space, with him. It wasn't that he had to pull him in, not exactly, it was just that... well. Riddick was better at this.

There was no gate, on the other side.

When they stepped out into the Underverse - or into what everyone had told them was the Underverse, there was no gate on the other side. Xander wasn't really sure that he could see a way out, if this was supposed to be where they were, because the gate that had appeared in space didn't appear here.

"This can't be the Underverse," Xander said, confused.

"What?" Riddick frowned, looking over at him, brows furrowed over his bright silver eyes, which seemed to glow, here. "We just walked through a gate in space into another verse. If this ain't the Underverse, what is it?"

"...it's my dreams," Xander whispered.

There was a massive field of long, golden grass in front of them, swaying lightly in a breeze that ruffled Xander's hair. There were mountains spread in the distance, purple blue in the almost twilight, and great spans of forests sprawled around before the mountain ranges. In some places, the trees were broken by rivers that flowed quiet and calm out of them, until all those little rivers spilled into a lake that shone silver and clear under the pale sun. The silver leaves of the trees ruffled and drifted in the breezes, innocent and so... normal.

"You dream about this place?" Riddick looked skeptical.

"This is where I live in cryo." Xander looked up at the other, bewildered, and dropped his hand to walk forward, slowly. "When I sleep, this is where I stay."

"I don't dream of a place, in cryo." he frowned.

"I do. And this is it. Come on," Xander looked up, suddenly. "I'll show you."

They ran through the woods, and Xander was reminded of his first dream of this place, where he'd been running and trying desperately to get away from the man that was now his mate. It hadn't been much of a chase, that time, and it wasn't much of a chase this time, either. His progress was a little slower, this time, than it was normally, but he supposed that was mostly the fact that he was sort of very pregnant, this time. He was in much better shape, sure, but he was also heavy with a child, this time, and being pregnant made running significantly... harder.

Running through the trees, they darted up a low stone slope, then up a narrow path. Xander finally entered his little cave, and let out a long, slow breath. "...home sweet home."

There was a pile of fur rugs, in the corner, and bloody drawings on all of the walls, drawings that Xander had made to try and catalog everything that had happened. It was a fucked up display, really, but it was... home, sort of. "This is where I live, during cryo, when I get stuck in that shitty chemical sleep... this is where I stay, and... wish you were here. You were here, once." He frowned slightly. "You caught me."

"Before you fell in the pit."

He blinked at him. "You dream it too?"

"It was years ago," Riddick frowned, crouching to pick up a stone bowl, sniffing at it, considering the scent of old, dried blood. "You were an idiot who threw yourself off of a tree, as I recall it."

Xander snickered softly. "True. But this my dream world. This isn't the Underverse."

"How do you know?"

He frowned, and looked at him. "...don't you think I'd know, if I was dreaming of being in the Underverse every time I closed my eyes?"

"What do you do, here?"

"I... I hunt, I draw shitty pictures, I swim in the lake... I talk to dead people."

"And this strikes you as normal?"

He hesitated. "Well. I was dreaming. I sort of figured that was the end of it, you know, at least none of them had claws on their hands and tried to slice me open, I just sort of figured, you know, who the hell cares if I talk to dead people in my dreams?"

"I'm not sure that anyone cares, so much as the fact that you talk to dead people in your dreams means you're probably in the Underverse in your dreams. Which means that you're walking around talking to the dead because you've got a way of getting... here. When you're sleeping."

He frowned, and sat heavily on the pile of furs. "This can't be... the Underverse, though. I mean, I kind of thought the Underverse was the, you know, land of the dead. Where the dead ruled. And they're punished, unless they were purified. I dunno about you, but I'm pretty sure my parents, who were very... anti Necromonger, weren't purified. But they weren't being punished, they just sort of... were here."

"Has it ever occurred to you that the Necromongers might have been wrong about the Underverse and what it takes to live there?" Riddick arched a brow.

He hesitated. "...actually, a really good point."

"I thought so." The other smirked, and stayed crouched on the floor, his elbows resting on his knees as he considered Xander where he sat. "What are we looking for, then, if you're such an expert on this world and the things that happen here... we have to find some way to put our mark on it so that the world knows we're not going to let the Underverse break. How exactly do we do that?"

Xander frowned, then pointed at the walls. "Look, if that's not enough of a mark, I dunno what is."

Riddick smirked, and shook his head. "If that was enough, we wouldn't have to crusade here."

"Good point." He frowned. "...look, I know it sounds insane, but... maybe we need to, ah... find some dead people."

He arched a brow.

"Well, I mean, if we really are in the Underverse, which is supposed to be the kingdom of the dead, then wouldn't it make sense to, you know, find some dead people?"

"Do you normally just... walk around and find them?" He drawled, smirking slightly.

"No." Xander admitted. "They usually come to me."

"Maybe they'll come to you."

"The dead are not going to - oh!"

Riddick frowned, and stood, moving towards the little fur bed that Xander had made for himself. "What is it?"

"You're not going to believe this." he gasped, trembling. "...but I think I just went into labour."

"Not here," Riddick looked... furious.

"I don't really get to pick the time or the place, the baby inside me sort of picks it, okay, and apparently he's decided that fucking... the fucking Underverse is the place." He growled the last bit through his teeth, fists tightly clenched. "...what I wouldn't give for the labour that women have... they have it so fucking - ah! Easy!"

The other man shook his head, and directed Xander to lay down properly on the furs. "Women would kill to have this as easy as you get it."

"Easy?" He repeated, pressing the heels of his hands against his forehead, groaning as he curled in on himself, teeth grit tightly. "You call this fucking easy?! This isn't easy! This hurts, this hurts like a son of a bitch!"

Riddick shook his head, and just pressed Xander down to the furs.

Xander had had three children before. The first had almost been born dead, umbilical cord around her throat, the second had been born seriously premature, and the third had been fairly uneventful, all things considered, despite the fact that he'd been born on a battlefield. But while Xander wasn't exactly an expert on all of this, he was pretty damn sure he knew a thing or two about having children, and about what had been a normal birth - at least for him. But this... this didn't feel normal. It wasn't just because he was apparently in the land of the dead while it was happening, because really, as far as births went, he'd had much stranger. And it wasn't because there was no doctor there, because he was sort of used to that. There were certain things that you get used to. Awkward home births had become one of those things, for Xander. But this birth wasn't right.

"Riddick," he panted, trembling. "Riddick, something's wrong..."

His mate didn't answer, just grunted. There was sweat beaded on his brow, and his hands and face were bloody. He was a mess, and Xander knew it had to do with him, it was his fault, it was the baby's fault...

"Riddick, something is wrong," he whispered, trembling, then howled, arching up as he clutched at the furs. Pain rippled through his body, tearing up his spine and through his stomach, as though every muscle in his body tried to contract at once. It was like a Charlie horse in his spine, which was not a sensation he wanted to actually experience, thank you very much, and he bit down on his lip so hard he could taste blood. "Fuck! Last time I felt like this, a fucking micro-raptor had just spiked me!"

"That made you pass out." Riddick said, grumbling.

"It hurt!" He pointed out, keening.

"Try not to pass out this time," the other rumbled, and said, firmly, "You know what to do, Xander, push."

"If you call me Xander anymore, I'm going to freak out," he keened, arching, blood running down his jaws. "You don't call me by my name, remember?"

"I do when you're losing this much blood," he rumbled.

"What?" he panted, confused. "Riddick?"

"It's breech," he growled.

"I don't know what that means, Riddick," he keened, crying out as he arched off the 'bed', struggling to breathe. "Riddick, I don't know what that means, please, just tell me what's wrong..."

"I mean that if the child comes out this way, it'll die."

Xander cried out, almost flailing, hand desperate to find Riddick's arm, and finally he found that muscular shoulder to clutch at, squeezing desperately. "Riddick, this baby can't die..."

"More concerned about you than the baby," his husband snarled, pressing his palm firmly to Xander's belly.

"Save the baby, you son of a bitch!" Xander howled. "Or I'll cut him out myself!"

Riddick kissed him, then, hard.

For a moment, he was really able to lose himself in it - until the pain kicked in again, and he howled, arching up. "Son of a bitch!"

“Breathe,” Riddick ordered, sternly, and flipped one of the ulaks out of his belt.

“I'm breathing!” He howled.

“Make damn sure it stays that way,” he growled, and pressed the blade of the ulak to Xander's belly, and snarled as he pressed the other man down, continuing to cut his mate's stomach open. It was like an awkward cesarean, a battlefield delivery done without Riddick's usual finesse or delicacy, a focus on simply getting the task done rather than being particularly artful about the way that it was done.

Xander shoved his knuckles into his mouth, biting down on his bones hard enough to try and keep from screaming – but more so, to keep from biting his tongue off. Blood was starting to run from the corners of his mouth, and while maybe it would have been a better idea to try and preserve what little blood he had left – Riddick really hadn't been kidding when he said he'd lost a lot of blood – Xander also figured that maybe, after all of this was done, he was going to want to have his tongue. You know, for the talking.

Maybe for a few other things.

Mostly for the talking.

“Keep breathing,” Riddick ordered, as he worked.

Xander tried to speak, tried to say something along the lines of: “You try and keep breathing after your mate is cutting into your belly without anesthesia,” but it really came out something more like a guttural, vicious growl, a snarl that spoke of pain and agony and rage. He couldn't make the words into... words.

There was a soft cry, suddenly, not like the howls that Xander used to see in those dreadful 'miracle of life' movies that they used to play, in health class, when he was still back in high school. It was just a soft, sharp intake of breath that was let out in a rush, then Riddick shifted forward, quietly. And without a word, he lay a bloody, kicking little child on Xander's chest.

He let out a sob of what might have been pain and might have been relief, and slowly extricated his knuckles from his teeth, reaching up with trembling fingertips to run his fingertips down a little cheek. “Riddick...”

“Keep breathing,” he ordered him, taking his knife and cutting a narrow strip off of the edge of one of the furs that Xander had used to make his bed over the years.

“Baby's kinda making me breathless,” he laughed.

“That's the blood loss.” He said, frowning, and muttered, “Gotta stitch you up. This'll hurt.”

“I really doubt it's going to hurt more than it already does,” he panted, and kept quietly stroking the little one's bloody face. That little, angelic face peered up at him, and for a moment, the baby's eyes looked whiskey gold, the way his had, the way Ziza and Wills' did – but then there was a flash of silver, and the eyes he was looking at were blank and pupiless, perfect for seeing in the dark, but useless in the light. Funny, how apparently the thing that had adapted them to be able to see in the dark, to be able to tell when people were trying to sneak up on them, had basically crippled them in normal conditions. They were a species made for the shadows, and their baby was made, like them, for darkness.

Xander bucked every time that Riddick had to punch another hope through his skin, jerked up every time that the other man pushed the leather strap through the holes, but still he kept stroking the little one's skin, softly.

“I suppose...” he rasped, voice rough. He hadn't screamed, but he felt like he had, for maybe hours. “That you're damn proud of yourself.”

“Oh?” Riddick drawled, working quietly, intently. He had to get him stitched up.

“And why is that?”

“Because you won, again,” Xander grumbled, stroking the little one's brow. “You would think that two men would be _more_ likely to have sons, not less. What the hell are we, Henry the Eighth?”

“Who?”

“Oh, it's a... he was a guy, on Earth, where I’m from... king that kept beheading his wives and stuff because they kept giving him daughters, instead of the sons he wanted... but my science teacher said it was Henry's fault, because it's actually the man that determines the sex of the baby, sort of... I mean... think about it... because of genes and stuff... if we were both women, every one of our children would be girls. I figure we got about a fifty fifty chance, for us.” He frowned down at his little daughter, a little confused. “...except that we have three daughters and only one son. So maybe the math is a little wrong.”

“I have told you before.” Riddick bent closer to Xander, and tightened the knot he'd just tied in the leather with his teeth. “Two men like us need a daughter to balance us back out.”

“Right.” He panted, and murmured, “So it's the verse's fault.”

“Probably.” He agreed, then shifted forward slightly, so that he lay beside Xander on the little pallet of furs. It wasn't much of a bed, not really, not for three people and not soaked in blood, but there they lay like the little macabre holy family, Xander like the Madonna of the Holy-Shit-How-Are-You-Alive-That's-A-Lot-Of-Blood. Riddick reached up to curl his fingers around the back of his tiny daughter's head, stroking her hair gently, and murmured, “She looks just like you.”

“What, because she's bloody as all fuck and has silver eyes?”

Riddick considered that for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah, pretty much.”

Xander snorted, and said, “So, when can I stand up?”

“You still have to figure out how to leave our marks on this Underverse of yours, remember?”

“Right.” He murmured, and rolled his head to the side, blinking at the entrance of the cave, brows furrowed for a moment, then said, slowly, “Riddick?”

“What?” He rumbled.

“...was there always a gate in front of the cave doors?”

Riddick frowned, and shifted up again, slowly, sitting. “Those are the gates. That's our way out of the Underverse.”

“But we didn't _do_ anything, we were here, I was – I was having a _baby_ , we didn't do anything to leave our mark on the Underverse!” Xander protested, struggling to sit up, grimacing as he did, but bound and determined to get up, just the same, their daughter curled close to his chest. “How the hell did we leave a mark on the Underverse like _that_?!”

“She is our mark,” he said, slowly.

“I'm not _leaving_ her here?!”

“I never suggested we did.” Riddick stood, and reached down to catch his hands under Xander's shoulders and his knees, and picked him up, cradling him against his chest, waiting until the other man had adjusted the little girl on his chest into a safer position, then said, “We're leaving. But remember that she's our promise to keep the fucking Underverse in its place.”

“I can remember that.” Xander panted. “I'm going to have the scar to end all scars to prove it.”

“You heal fast,” he reminded him, walking towards the gates – and this time, they opened, slowly, before them, exactly as they hadn't, before. “Your scarring won't be bad. It never is. Even when I want it to be.”

“You _want_ my scarring to be bad?” He frowned.

“I wouldn't mind.” He smirked. “Remind you of all the work I did to keep you and her alive.”

“Very funny,” he grumbled, then sucked in a sharp breath when they slipped through, and stood on the cobblestone courtyard again, instead of in his planet, instead of in the world where he dreamed, and the stars crackled over their heads, cold and distant. It was like walking into a whole different plane of existence – and it was. It really was, the verse and the Underverse were different planes, different realms, one of the living and one for the dead.

And the little one in Xander's arms had come into the birthright of one realm while in the other.

The Purifier and Vaako were waiting on the ramp, when Riddick stepped up to them, still holding Xander, who still held the child.

“Well,” the Purifier said, at last. “You had an eventful pilgrimage, then.”

Xander snorted. “You could say that.”

Vaako stepped forward, and held out his arms. “I will take him, Riddick.”

“I can carry my mate myself.” He growled.

“He's your mate, but he's my wife,” he smirked, almost deviously. “Your children are waiting. Let me carry him.”

Riddick hesitated, then smirked. “Wait your turn.”

Vaako laughed, and dropped his arms. “Of course. But I will have my turn.”

“We'll see,” he rumbled, and started walking up the ramp, into the relative safety of the Basilica.

“...did he just suggest some kind of bride sharing arrangement?” Xander frowned, trying to figure out exactly what had just happened. “Like... where I’m the bride that gets shared?”

Riddick just smirked.

“That totally _is_ it, isn't it?” He squawked.

“What will you do now, my Lord Marshall?” the Purifier asked, walking rapidly to catch up to them. “The pilgrimage is over. What now?”

He looked down at the man in his arms, and rumbled, “Xander?”

Xander looked up, still always startled every time that Riddick called him by his name, and hesitated. “Well, if you ask me, which... you are... then I would sat that while... it's _great_ and all that we've managed to put our mark on the gates of the Underverse and basically tell it that we're going to stop it from busting out, there are dozens of places where the barrier between the verse and the Underverse are thin, remember? Vaako said that these are places where it could... start to break through. I think we need to visit all our old Outposts. Check on whether or not things are breaking through. Leave reinforcements if we need to.”

“A good idea,” Riddick rumbled, smirking slightly.

Xander smirked, stroking the baby's hair back, gently, smiling when she wriggled a little, reaching for his hand. “Sometimes I have those.”

  
 

\---

  
 

EPILOGUE

  
 

The snow was almost blinding as it was blown across the plains, the wind that took it wrapping around them with greedy fingers, catching at the heavy robes that they wore over their clothing, to try and ward off the chill. The settlement in the valley below them was coated in snow, thick snowbanks covering the small outbuildings until they were nearly covered, and only the large building in the centre of the group was uncovered. There were some people moving around between the little buildings, but they were far away from it, now. None of them were recognizable.

Xander shifted the hood of his robes, peering down at the little settlement, and said, almost shouting against the wind, “At least they have a fairly good structure here!”

Riddick nodded, brows furrowed over the goggles he wore to protect against both the blinding white light around them, but also from the wind and snow itself. There were thick white snowflakes in his eyebrows, which Xander thought was funny, even though there were just as many flakes clinging to his own hair, catching in the curls that the wind kept brushing into his face.

“Last outpost looked like a war zone,” he smirked.

“Last outpost _was_ a war-zone.”

“Okay, good point,” he smirked, mischievously, and reached out to grab Riddick's hand, squeezing. “But I mean, after this many years of checking outposts, and just trying to make sure that the Underverse doesn't break through... it's sort of nice to find an outpost that's actually, you know, standing.”

Riddick shook his head, but squeezed his fingers back.

“So... what now?” He whispered. “I mean, I’m pretty sure we've done most of the outposts, haven't we?”

“Well, there is that one left.”

“Which one?” He frowned.

Wills howled as she darted past them, arms spread out wide as she ran through the snow. She had long since past her quiet stage, and it seemed that she wanted to prove, at any moment, that her lungs had not been underdeveloped by her premature birth, and she howled like a banshee whenever she could.

“Wills!” He called after her, shaking his head. “She's a brat.”

“She has been... influenced.” Riddick grumbled, but he was smirking.

Jesse dashed after his older sister, snow flying up around his feet as he plowed through after her. He wasn't howling, though he wore an old pair of Riddick's goggles that seemed to dwarf his tiny face, and he was laughing. The two of them barreled towards Ziza, who was sitting on one of the drifts, looking out over the settlement.

There was a flash of movement around them, too fast to see properly and Xander called, loudly enough to be heard over the wind, “Carolyn! Be careful!”

He'd thought toddlers were hard enough to deal with.

Holy half dead toddlers?

A whole different issue.

Turns out that what the previous Lord Marshall, the one that Riddick had killed, had been able to do was because of two things. Aereon had been wrong when she said he moved the way he did because he was her son. He could go _invisible_ because he was her son. He could move like that because he really _had_ been one of the holy half dead. And little Carolyn, because she had been born in the Underverse, perhaps, was within the ranks of the holy half dead. She moved too fast, like she was not quite right – but she really wasn't. She was half dead.

Xander sighed, heavily, and glanced back at his mate. “She's going to be the death of me.”

Riddick smirked, and tugged him into his chest, curling his arm around Xander's lower back as he kissed him, firmly, a brush of cold lips to cold lips that warmed them both from the inside out, like a fine whiskey – not that Xander would be drinking any whiskey, because his stomach was starting to swell, again. His mate had a habit of knocking him up – no one was really surprised.

(Well, not entirely true, Vaako had laughed, and said he was surprised it had taken Riddick so long, this time.)

“Mmm...” he sighed, softly, fingers curled in the front of Riddick's cloak. “Very nice. Wait... you said that there was 'that one left'. What did you mean?”

He smirked. “That one weak point.”

“Which one?” Xander prompted, pouting slightly at his mate.

“Earth.”

He sucked in a sharp breath, surprised. “Are you seriously suggesting we go to _Earth_ , now? But, I mean... Earth is _years_ away...”

“We're a few years off, now. Closer than we've ever been before.”

“Wow.” He murmured, surprised, eyes lit up behind his goggles with the hopes of eighteen years, the need to show his husband all of the things that had meant a lot to him, had been his home, had been where he was _from_. “I – that, that's _good_ , Riddick. I can't wait to introduce you to my family!”

“Think you'd approve of us?” He smirked.

“Hell no, but who cares?” He laughed, and kissed him again. “Dammit, Riddick, I can't wait to go home!”

And at that moment, millions of miles away, Faith made a wish.


End file.
